LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

r^=:A 







UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 



COBWEBS 



BY 



H. G. WATRES 

(STELLA OF LACKAWANNA) 




BOSTON 
D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 

32 Franklin Street 



-^ 



■P5 3157 
.\A/3 51 



Copyright^ i886y 
By D. Lothrop & Co. 



13etjfcatetJ 



TO 

MY CHILDREN. 



CONTENTS, 



PAGB 

My Poem 9 

Our City of Anthracite lo 

Ships at Sea 12 

Barefoot 14 

Of My Choosing 16 

Wyoming 17 

Fame 19 

Going Back 21 

Unloved 23 

Old Letters 24 

I Dare not Ask 26 

Our Quarrel 27 

Another Year 28 

Would We? 30 

March 31 

Only 33 

My Lost Boy 35 

Decoration Day 37 

One Summer 39 

A Winter Night 41 

There Were Three 45 

Through the Keyhole 46 

Home 48 

The Old Story 49 

April Secrets 51 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

Cry OF THE Clipped Steed 52 

From My Window 54 

The Poet 56 

Tired 57 

Two Songs 59 

Babie Lou 61 

Leaf-fall 62 

Then 64 

Afterward 65 

Love's Monotony ^'] 

Out from the Shore 67 

If 69 

Unforgotten 70 

Trailing Arbutus 73 

The Poet's Kingdom 74 

Our Dead President 75 

Faces on the Street ^-j 

Rain-Music 80 

The Grieved Muse 81 

April 83 

Will They Miss Me? 85 

June Roses Z'^ 

Prospect Rock . 89 

The Empty Purse 93 

Rae 95 

My Loom 97 

Apple Blossoms 98 

Would I? . 99 

Invocation to Sleep loi 

Frost Doings 103 

Love's Loss 104 

Child Lilian 107 

My Cottage Home 108 

Oh, No! 11 1 

Send Them Home Tenderly 113 

The Broken Thought 114 



CONTENTS, 7 

You AND I, John i^S 

My Cigar ii7 

In the Last Hour nS 

My Roses 1^9 

My Lover 120 

Boston in Flames 121 

The Watcher 123 

Song of Labor 125 

Doubting 127 

Luline 129 

The Dead of Avondale 13^ 

Some One Else — Not I i34 

The Golden Wedding i35 

October 13^ 

A May-Day Carol 140 

Annie, the Bride of a Year . 141 

My Ship 142 

Good-Bye 143 

The Christmas Shadow 145 

A Woman's Reason 147 

Caged 148 

If Ever You Need Me 150 

Somewhere 152 

South Winds 153 

Ripe Cherries 154 

Bret Harte 156 

Song 158 

A Story of Color 159 

Our Fallen 163 

October Rain 165 

Outward Bound 167 

If Only 168 

The Old Year 169 

Under the Sycamore 171 

Entreaty 172 

The Unknown 173 



8 CONTENTS. 

Snow Birds 175 

Over the Sea 177 

Christmas Morn 178 

Hedged About 180 

Shipwreck 182 

Outgoing of a Year 183 

Beyond 185 

Burning Chicago 186 

Twice Waiting 189 

Come to Me, Honest Soldier 190 

Wave of the Sea 192 

Song of the Susquehanna at Wyoming .... 193 

General Grant's Defeat .196 

Call Me Darling 197 

Song of a Leaf 198 

Snow-wrapt 200 

Our Paths 201 

Woodland Friends 202 

Unread 204 

On Ocean Beach 206 

Yesterday. 209 

Aprilia 210 

In the Starlight 212 

After All 213 

How Many? 215 

Willie 216 

A Year's Review 217 

Rest 219 



COBWEBS. 



MY POEM. 

A MOONLESS night, when the old forests shivered, — 

By gales from seaward torn ; 
A pang, a passion, and a joy all crowning, 

And thou, beloved, wert born. 

Thou liest beside me, tender, voiceless, pleading ; 

All worn and weary I ; 
And yet to call thee mine, a half smile lightly 

Beats back the started sigh. 

Thou grewest shaped in sadness and in longing ; 

How else should child of mine. 
When the great world its cruel wrongs went crying. 

And my life nourished thine. 

I smile and weep by turns, and would caress thee ; 

And yet between us stands 
The scoffer Doubt, with menacing and mocking; 

And I withdraw my hands. 



lO OUR CITY OF ANTHRACITE. 

Shall others call thee fair, oh, born of sorrow, 

Or is it only I ? 
Should I unloose the cage that holds thee captive, 

And bid thee outward fly ? 

Is there a heart, of all that hold their throbbings 

To listen human song. 
To thrill responsive with the same sad passion, 

That swept my own so long ? 

Into some home, where souls are sick with waiting 

A sweet hope, long deferred, 
Would the dull eye glance upward at thy coming, 

As at a spring-time bird ? 

If thou shouldst flutter softly forth, and follow 

The pathway of the morn. 
Afar my life would watch thee, and remember 

The hour when thou wert born. 



Ml 



OUR CITY OF ANTHRACITE. 

In galler}^, niche, and pillar ; 

In panel, and columned wall ; 
In transept, and nave, and casement. 

Our city surpasses all 



OUR CITY OF ANTHRACITE, II 

The cities that men have builded 

By the orient seas, afar, 
Where spires in the sunlight glisten, 

And the olden grandeurs are. 

Whichever the gate you enter — 

From the day-glare broad and white, 
You will say 'tis a wondrous city — 

Our city of anthracite ; 
And the people — the patient people — 

Begrimed with the incense-smoke 
From its many-altared temples, 

Are a curious canny folk. 

And the dreams they dream in silence, 

In the pale, fantastic light 
Of those empty and low-walled chambers, 

In our city of anthracite ! 
With spectres, and ghouls, and goblins, 

A solemn and weird-faced train — 
Are more than we wot — we dreamers — 

Slow pacing the upper plain. 

Whichever the gate you enter 

Our city of anthracite, 
Stand gnomes at the glittering portals, 

Dusk-mantled, as elves of night ; 
As guards of the sable jewels, 

The genii of lower air 
Have shaped from the mists of ages, 

And hidden in secret there. 



12 SHIPS AT SEA. 

We dream of the castles olden, 

On the slopes of sunny Spain ; — 
With a blaze of gaudy splendor 

On turret, and tower, and fane ; 
But, down where those deft-palmed people 

Search gems in the flickering light, 
Are rarer and costlier castles, 

In our city of anthracite. 






SHIPS AT SEA. 

Oh, ships, that left me at the dawn, 

When life wdth hope was glowing ; 
No one of all the sweet days gone, 

I have not mourned your going ; 
For ye were freighted with the gold 

No other keel may bring me, 
Whatever the treasures new or old, 

A coming sail may wing me. 

Oh, ships, that float so far away, 

I watch you slowly drifting. 
As children, at their careless play, 

Watch the light zephyrs lifting 
The tiny boat they set afloat 

On some low-rippling river. 
Till, at the last, a fading mote ; 

Then gone from sight forever. 



SHIPS AT SEA, 13 

I dream of you, my ships at sea ; 

And, when the winds are blowing, 
I wish they would bring back to me 

Some tidings of your going : 
I see you rocking all the night 

Upon a phantom billow ; 
And when the morn unveils her light, 

A tear is on my pillow. 

Fair ships, I launched but yesterday, 

And smiled to see you leaving, 
Ye bore so many loves away, 

Well worth my honest grieving : 
And I have sat with shaded eyes, 

Out-peering towards the distance ; 
But no responses — no replies — 

Waft back to me assistance. 

Oh, rocks beyond, that lure my ships 

To dash them ere returning : 
That lie in wait with hungry lips. 

And hands with fierceness burning : 
As brigands, in a mountain-pass. 

From moon or star-beam shaded. 
No ship of mine escapes, alas, 

Your presence uninvaded. 

And you, oh, soft, seductive gale. 
With frowning boulders mated, 
Why should I trust another sail 



14 BAREFOOT. 

With hope, or passion freighted ? 
They all go down — my ships at sea 

Howe'er the tide be moving, 
Nor any tidings come to me 

Of all that go a-roving. 



BAREFOOT. 

Ha, my darling ! so there you are, 
Hid in the tall sweet grass of June ; 

How I have searched for you everywhere. 
Till I heard the hum of your baby-tune ; 

The mellow hum of your baby-tune, 
Shaped in a rhythm of softest flow, 

Better befitting the brooks of June, 

Than you, pet, shouting one hour ago ; — 

Shouting and romping an hour ago. 
With never a hat to your curly pate ; 

Chasing the butterflies to and fro — 
Over the hedge-rows, to the gate ; — 

Down to the lilacs by the gate ; — 
Pausing to list to the robin there, 

Crooning a ditty to his mate, 

Rocked in her nest by the fondling air. 



BAREFOOT. 1 5 

Ha, my darling ! I've found you out ! 

Why don't you speak to me, say, pet, say ? 
Ah, but I see, there is half a pout 

Pursing the lips that I kissed to-day ; — 

The red, red lips that I kissed to-day ; 

And the bonniest head in the world a-droop; 
What is it gleams in the clover, say ? 

Just by the rose-tree ; I must stoop : 

Lower yet by the rose-tree stoop ; 

Oh, 'tis a wee foot, white and bare : 
Never in studio's costliest group 

Shone there a picture half so fair : — 

Never was picture half so fair: 

Never a pencil-touch like this : 
Dream of it, artists, everywhere ! 

/will inclasp it with a kiss. 

Dreaming now in the sweet June grass, 

Two of us : darling fell asleep ; — 
Butterflies, now you may safely pass. 

For the roguish blue eyes wdll not peep : 

The rogue with the blue eyes went to sleep, 
And two little tired feet, white and bare, 

Rest where the dallying sunbeams creep, 
Bronzing the brown of his tangled hair : — 



1 6 OF MY CHOOSING. 

Kissing the brown of his tangled hair ; — 
Kissing, as softly as lovers do : 

What would you give, oh, gold beams rare, 
To hide awhile in a dainty shoe ? -^ 

To play bo-peep in a dainty shoe, 
Tossed from a foot so wondrous fair, 

While we go dreaming on — we two — 
Beautiful dreams in the summer air. 



OF MY CHOOSING. 

Should you hear me softly singing in the valley at 

your feet. 
In a strange, untutored outburst, quivering with a 

rhythmic beat; — 
Wild as meadow-larks' at sunset, by the lovely fields 

of wheat; 

Lure me not from out the stillness, and the shadows, 
misty, gray. 

For the hill-top of ambition, stretching to the clouds 
away. 

Lest the glare of sun bewilder ; let me in the low- 
lands stay, 

Where the toilers pause and listen in their weariness 
and pain ; r 



WYOMING, 17 

And the children, hunting cowslips, dally at each 

air-borne strain. 
And from eyes with laughter in them, trickles slow a 

tender rain. 

So, if ever you may hear me at my singing, loud 

or low, 
In the valley of my choosing, where the white-browed 

lilies blow, 
And the passion-flowers of silence lend the air a 

warmer glow : 

Hint no chiding: it were better not to build a nest 
too high ; 

For the storms that rend the bosom break the bold- 
est near the sky ; 

With my bits of tune unchallenged, in the valley safe 
am I. 

WYOMING. 

(THE ONE-HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY.) 

Over the dust of a century's dead. 
Hushed be our laughter, and muffled our tread ; 
Voice no loud anthem; we stand where they stood — 
Kinsmen that hallowed the turf with their blood ; 
Soft as the strains of a lute o'er the sea. 
Let the deep chords of our symphonies be ; 
Noiseless the footfall, and low-bowed the head, 
Over the dust of a century's dead. 



1 8 WYOMING. 

Who has not shuddered, with cheek ashen pale, 
At the appalling and soul-thrilling tale, 
Traced o'er the page of a weird long ago. 
With the deep pathos of measureless woe ? 
Who never traversed — tho' seas roll between — 
Cool breathing wildwood and shadowed ravine, 
Where rang the war-whoop and bended the bow 
Of a red-handed and treacherous foe ? 

Curls the blue smoke from a home so apart 
That never quickened a throb of the heart, 
O'er the dire story of rapine and wrong, 
Blighting our beautiful valley so long ? 
Stretches a solitude — gloom-girt and far — 
Where gleams a sunbeam, or glitters a star. 
That never caught, from the night-wailing blast. 
Hints of our tragic and terrible past ? 

As clears the mist from the forehead of night, 
Brightened the sky : see ! what sparkle, what light, 
O'er the green slope of meadow and hill. 
Where the wild roses are nodding at will : 
Over the river that moaned in its flow, 
Twice fifty perilous summers ago, 
Where, by its tide, in the sunset's low fires, 
Fell, with slow torture, our fiend-hunted sires. 

Down the far centuries — winding their way 
'Mong the gray vapors of time — shall the clay. 
Tenderly wrapped at the granite's pure feet. 
Be all forgot in life's hurry and heat? 



FAME. 19 

No ! sob the waves from the muse-haunted shore ; 
No ! sighs the forest, with arms drooping lower ; 
Nor may the years — swift as eagles above — 
Purge the red stain from the Valley we love. 

Over a century^s historic dust, 
This be our legacy, this our proud trust — 
That no invading and arrogant tread 
Press the dear turf folded over our dead : 
And the sweet tide of each incoming spring 
To our fair homes no disloyalty bring : 
This be our legacy, this our proud trust, 
Over a century's love-hallowed dust, 

Ml 

FAME. 

'MoNG fields of fancy once I strayed. 

And idly strung sweet thoughts together, 
As wildwood berries when a child. 
In summer weather. 

And, as I dangled them aloft, 

A busy gale down-dropped, and tossed them 
As rose-leaves on a wayside brook, 
And so I lost them. 

It was not much to lose — not much ; 

A few poor dreams too wild to utter ; — 
And yet, my heart in shaping them, 
Grew all a-flutter. 



20 FAME, 

A few poor dreams ; and still, it seems 

Their pathos through the lone ways ringing, 
Touched kindred chords, and other hearts 
Went softly singing. 

And echoes whispered in the wood, 

'Mong wild and wondering pulses beating 
A summer rhythm, and winds droned by 
My name repeating. 

And this, they smiling say, is Fame : 

This the rare morsel men are craving, 
When golden dross hath had its day 
Of soul enslaving. 

And this is Fame : a gay-hued bird 

Along the flush of sunbreak flying, 
With worlds agape : with broken wing 
At nightfall, dying. 

What worth, at best, oh, sad, proud heart, 

With empty arms forever reaching 
A higher good : but only mocked 
In your beseeching. 

Is it enough, oh, hungry life, 

Stringing sweet meaning words together, 
As wildwood berries when a child, 
In summer weather ? 



GOING BACK. 21 



GOING BACK. 

Do I hear you aright ? do you mean what you 

say — 
Sitting there in the dusk, in your own listless way, 
With the damp of the night on your purple-black 

hair. 
And your eyes full of lights, flashing out on the 

air 
As a star-vapor, held till the midnight be past, 
On the still lying world — breaks unshackled at 

last : 
And the elves laugh outright, that again you would 

wind 
The same wild-tangled paths, that you once left 

behind. 

That again on your lip a child's light bubbled mirth; 
And a child's careless songs, worth so little, — yet 

worth 
Aye, so much, in the coin that life's after-thought 

heaps 
On the fancy and brain, and full heart, till there 

leaps — 
As a red wedge of fire, through each fibre and vein, 
A mad longing to live it all over again : — 
Heart-ache, heart-break, and tears ; failure, loss, 

and defeat. 
With each hollow disguise that makes life such a 

cheat. 



22 GOING BACK. 

You would live it all over again : little doubt, 
Leaning there with your purple-black hair blown 

about 
By the vagabond night-winds, just rippling the air, 
While the mischievous elfins are weaving a snare. 
All too subtle for memory's warden to grasp, 
Ere the wary mesh fasten your thought in its clasp ; 
Till some door, that forever seemed shut long ago. 
Opens wide, and the dull embers start, all aglow. 

Going back means so much ; only peril at best, * 
And mistake, step by step, and eternal unrest ; 
A blind search in the dark for what never we find : — 
Oh, 'tis better to leave the dead embers behind ; 
Well content, if our souls keep unscathed by the fire, 
Nor burned out every energy, every desire. 
Save to creep to the narrowing silence below. 
There to hide from the world all the world fain 
would know. 

Going back means so much, oh, so much, longing 

friend : 
Let it go with the best, or the worst, nor contend 
Yet again for a chance in a race you once lost 
On the sin-beaten track, at so saddening a cost : 
Let it go with the best — or the worst — as it must : 
Leave the embers to blacken ; the dead hopes to 

rust *, 
Dare not risk the wild wish for another fresh start 
On a road that so jostles, and wearies the heart. 



UNLOVED, 23 



UNLOVED, 

Hungry, and wan, and wasted, for lack of a loving 
word: 
See ! how the wee ones huddle close to the hovel 
wall : 
Speak to them very softly ; never a startled bird 
Fluttered more at the heart-beat, at whir of a rifle 
ball: 
Men with the muscle of manhood, maidens, and 
plodding wives. 
Toil from the dewy sun-break till the stars are out 
again, 
With only the recollection — alas for their broken 
lives ! — 
Of the brief romance of a May-time, when the 
trees were white and when 
Stood the fair earth and the heavens together in 
fond embrace ; 
And the wanton wind from cloudward, blighting 
and wrecking all : 
Men among men, aye heroes, born of a sturdy 
race, 
Hunger as well as the children crouched by the 
hovel wall. 

Pallid, and worn, and shrunken, dying with thirst- 
parched lips ; 
Starving so near the banquet where the feast of 
love is spread ; 



24 OLD LETTERS. 

Watching from gilded goblets the wine as it foams 
and drips : 
Standing apart with longing, wishing the day were 
fled: 
Hear it, breeze of the morning ! faltering, fading 
lives, 
Starving in stately mansions, pining in low-roofed 
homes : 
Men with the muscle of manhood ; maidens, and 
plodding wives, 
Pleading with unvoiced pathos, just for a scattered 
crumb : 
Listen, star of the evening ! dim through dusky air ; 
Men among men, aye heroes ! perishing one by 
one ; — 
Dying with bitterest hunger ; famishing everywhere ; 
Alas for the pagan coldness, under a christian 
sun ! 

OLD LETTERS, 

I HAVE listened the rain's songful patter, 

'Gainst window and wall. 
Till it seems, in my dream, some lost echo 

Come back at my call : 
And my soul her pale hands reaches outward- 

The old life to grasp. 
But these rose-leaves of love — crushed and faded — 

Alone meet their clasp. 



OLD LETTERS, 25 

With the odor that clings to old relics, 

Hid safe from the eye 
Of the brain-battling, care-crowded present, 

The yellow things lie ; 
With the dust of the past on their margin, 

And love in each fold, 
Oh, what fervor of speech, and what fondness. 

Their brief pages hold. 

They were penned in those old days, those sweet days 

Of infinite trust. 
When the hours fell untainted by mildew, 

Or eaten by rust ; 
And a quiver of lip, and a struggle 

With ill-repressed tears. 
Breathe the youth of regret and remembrance, 

Despite all the years. 

'Twas but yesterday, that a wild transport 

Thrilled madly each vein, 
As my soul drank the rich-worded meaning. 

Again and again ; 
It had been all too cruel — too cruel — 

Had Fate then laid bare 
The dire wrecks she would make of my castles, 

My castles in air. 

But I hsten to-day the low patter 

Of rain on the pane, 
Till it seems, in my dream, the old echoes 

Are ringing again : 



26 / DARE NOT ASK. 

And I con the sweet pages, long folded 

And hidden apart, 
With a glance backward turned at the spring-time 

The spring of the heart. 



I DARE NOT ASK. 

I DARE not ask thee, Lord, for all 

My foolish heart has learned to crave, 

Lest from Thy hand a gift might fall, 
It were not best for me to have. 

I dare not plead for all I need — 
Or seem to, in my life's small way. 

Lest low desire might sometimes lead 
My carnal thoughts from Thee away. 

I dare not ask — and yet I dare, 
My hungry heart cries out for food, 

And only in low-worded prayer 

My soul's needs may be understood. 

Thou knowest all — Thou knowest all — 
How weak I am : I would but plead 

That from Thy hand the gifts may fall 
To satisfy my spirit's need. 



OUR QUARREL. 2/ 



OUR QUARREL. 

We quarrelled one day — the world and I — 
'Twas a trifling thing to spar about, 
But in all the coming days, no doubt 

We shall pass each other coldly by. 

We never were formed to quite agree, 

Uncompromising, and wilful, both, 

And I say it freely — nothing loth, 
That the world exacted too much of me ; 

And I of the world ; from the first 'twas so, 

Though we half shook hands and tried to smile. 
Yet a hate was watching all the while 

To strike each other a deadly blow. 

We met, and nodded, and that was all ; 

We both had friends, but the world the most ; 

And the few that my lonely life could boast 
Were never near w^hen my heart would call. 

With a careless laugh, to myself, I said. 
We may still go on in this loveless way, 
With never a clash all life's brief day. 

And it only jeered, and tossed its head. 

But there came a time as the years went by, 
That a trifle — an idle tale to tell — 



28 ANOTHER YEAR. 

Came up between us, and so — ah, well — 
We had a quarrel — the world and I. 

And w^e walk apart ; it is better so, 

Than to keep a home for a false, false smile, 
In an honest heart, with hate the while 

Close-watching to strike a secret blow. 



ANOTHER YEAR. 

As a breath that comes lifting the dead leaves 

That lie at our feet ; — 
As a shadow that purples the sunshine 

On turret and street, 
As a meteor trailing above us 

Its red fires at night. 
As a rush-light that flares by the river. 

Then fades from the sight. 
As a dream, born of midnight and silence. 

Dissolving at dawn, 
As a phantom that leaves us bewildered, 

The dead year has gone. 

Shall we chant a new song o'er the triumphs 

That sparkled and shone 
In the beautiful glances of summer 

When meadows lay mown ; 



ANOTHER YEAR, 29 

And the arms of young orchards low-bended 

With nectar impressed, 
And the silken-haired corn draped the hill-side 

That leaned towards the west, 
And sweet cups full of wines, unpolluted, 

Stained purple the hand. 
And the yellow of harvests unrivalled 

Made glad all the land ? 

There were vapors at morn, but the noon-tide 

Hung white in the sun, 
And our faith grew divine in the promise 

That right should be won, 
With no sword, but the voice of a people, 

Deep-cadenced and low; 
While the fine-tissued brain of our leaders 

Turned backward the blow 
Meant to crush us : Sing louder, oh, singers ! 

The year that swung by 
£ound a peace 'round our foreheads, no despot 

Dare ever defy. 

There are follies enough to remember; 

And wrongs to forget, 
For the world scarce has learned the sweet lesson 

Of sacrifice yet ; 
Are the children of dust growing wiser ? 

What answer shall be 
Stealing out from the wind's loving whisper, 

From hill-top to sea ? 



30 WOULD WE? 

Are the sinews of truth losing firmness 

In battling the foe ? 
Or the nerve-force of right too enfeebled 

To deal blow for blow ? 

Though it stung us with cruel reproaches, 

And breathed in our ear 
Smoothest flatteries, but to ensnare us, 

We loved the dead year, 
For, whatever our losses, or grievings, 

We well-nigh forgot — 
When from out its gray shell crept the morrow- 

The ills of our lot, 
Though the thorns tore our flesh, yet the roses 

Made sweetest amends, 
And we mourn — with a tender regretting — 

This kindest of friends. 



WOULD WEI 

Could we live it all over again — 

You and I, little love. 
All life's rapture, and sorrow, and pain, 

All the dreams that we wove 

From the gold-threads of hope, lightly caught 

In the mesh of the years. 
All the lessons by suffering taught, 

All the bosom-wrung tears ; 



MARCH, 3 1 

All the laughter that dimpled the cheek, 

Or deep-lighted the eye ; 
All the joy that our lips might not speak 

Save with love's trembling sigh; 

Would we choose the same paths as before ? 

Would we wind the same way 
Along youth's irresistible shore, 

With the seasons all May ? 

Would we kiss the same lips, little one ? 

Would we clasp the same hands, 
With the glare of the summer day gone, 

And the moon on the sands ? 

Could we live it all over, my sweet — 

All life's rapture, and pain, 
Would our wayward unreas'ning feet 

Choose the same paths again ? 



MARCH, 

Not of you sing the poets, oh, March, 
Not of you with your roystering airs. 

Roaring down from the sky's hollow arch 
The mad shouts that a bacchanal dares, 



32 MARCH. 

Not of you sing the poets, rude child 

From the womb of the Arctics, with ways 

So imperious, so ribald, so wild. 

That the muses are dumb with amaze. 

Not of you sing the singers — oh, no, 

For you bluster their timid speech down 
With your arrogant tramp to and fro, 

And your face in perpetual frown : 
You are raging and rampant to-night. 

For there comes such a wail from the heart 
Of the hills, in the weird-peopled light, 

That my own answers back with a start, 

At your riotous orgies again. 

Wanton spirit of storm and unrest, 
For the many-voiced forests complain, 

And the stars shade their eyes in the west : 
Not the growl of the wolf in his lair — 

Asking blood with his great hungry eyes — 
Strikes more fiercely the dumb-lying air, 

Than the break of your night-bellowed cries. 

Do you know, most untamed of them all, 

That a baby lies dying to-night 
In a hovel, with only a wall 

Between you and its w^rappings of w^hite ? 
Softer yet on the roof beat your wings, 

Softer yet at the door, lest ye break 
The blest spell of the music that rings 

From Beyond, where the sleeper shall wake. 



ONLY. 33 

Gather up your wild robes and depart 

Through the ice-gates from whence crept ye 
forth, 
With the coldness of hate in your heart, 

And the turbulent ways of the north : 
Ye have kept well your vows, brawling March, 

Now begone to the glaciers again. 
That no more 'neath the sky's hollow arch 

The grieved heart of the hills shall complain. 



ONLY. 

On the tender ear of darkness — as a voice from the 

shore of silence — 
The cry of a new soul marshalled to the ranks of 

human conflict : 
A lullaby in the twilight ; a kiss, and a soft lined 

cradle. 

With the sunshine caught and tangled in his curls, a 
fair child romping ; 

And his torn hat wreathed with cowslips from the far- 
away old meadow ; 

To-day but for blowing bubbles ; to-morrow an un- 
cared chaos. 



34 ONLY. 

A youth with a sighing bosom, inditing a love-lorn 

sonnet 
To a palpitating angel, low humming behind the 

lattice. 
When the moon rides down the azure with her rival 

star attendants. 

A monarch, with keen glance outward o'er the king- 
dom of contention, 

And an arm to harvest triumphs where others but 
garner failures ; 

And a purpose fate-defiant, to win what is worth the 
winning. 

A sage, with his life behind him ; and the yesterdays 

remembered 
With a sharp pang at the heart-core, and a flush at 

their honest follies. 
And the joy-wine hope had reddened, on the sand 

outspilled forever. 

A stranger among strange kinsfolk, with a hurt and 
heavy spirit, 

A last gaze at the sunset, and a sob through a dis- 
tant doorway ; 

A spade 'mong the loosened pebbles, and ashes 
again to ashes. 



MV LOST BOY. 35 



MY LOST BOY. 

Ye have borne him away from me, cruelest years ; 

Ye have borne him away in your flight ; 
Though my arms reach to clasp him — my beautiful 
boy — 
He comes not to their shelter to-night ; 
The warm shelter that waits for him, yearns for him 
yet, 
As of old, when his dear head lay pressed 
In soft sleep, where the holiest heart throbs on 
earth 
Leap the veins in a mother^s fond breast. 

Ye have stolen my child ; were ye jealous, stern 
years. 
That my heart held the best it might crave 
'Mong the whole range of gifts raining into my life, 

And the costliest God ever gave ? 
Could ye not rest content with the spoils of the 
past — 
With the baffled ambitions that lie 
With a woman's lost youth, on the wreck-scattered 
coast 
Where the night birds of memory cry ? 

Ye have robbed me before, grasping years, and I own 

To the weakness of tears at my loss ; 
But the jewels ye snatched from me then have grown 
dim, 



36 MV LOST BOY. 

As I peer the wide distance across 
To the old, listless morns, when your breath seemed 
too light 

To leave rust-stains where'er it should fall ; 
But my life mourns a pearl from its setting to-night, 

More resplendent to me than they all. 

At my side stands a youthful Apollo, with locks 

Dark as waves that lie fretting the sea ; 
And soul-eyes that out-flash as the stars in the South, 

When the face of dead love steals to me. 
And they tell me 'tis he — 'tis the boy that I lost ; 

But the thought-grooves are carved on his brow, 
And his hand wanders towards me — I clasp it in 
mine — 

But the dimples are gone from it now. 

And he looms toward the clouds, bending down to 
my face. 

Till the pride in my eyes, and the tears 
Strive for mastery there ; but my boy! oh, my boy! 

How my soul cries with pain, heartless years ! 
For ye stole him away while he slept on my arm ! 

And he walks in the distance 'mong men, 
With the grandeur of purpose that manhood evokes, 

But I pine for my fair boy again. 

When I sit in the silence, and think of it all, 

That no more to my desolate breast 
I shall press his brown curls with a low lullaby 



DE CORA TION DAY, 37 

When the day folds her robes in the West ; 
How ye crept, step by step, stealthy years, to my 
nest, 
Luring out from its shelter, my boy ! 
Though he walk among men with the mien of a 
god, 
On my lips the dead ashes of joy. 



Ml 



DECORATION DAY. 

If there be a drowsy bud, 

Dreaming on the couch of May ; 
If there be a laggard leaf. 

Dallying lightly on the way ; 
Or if hides a shy, wild rose — 

Veiling deep its heart of red ; 
We would coax it into bloom 

For the memory of our dead. 



If there gleam a regal spray 

Through the far wood's w^ondrous green ; 
Nodding — nodding all the day, 

At the sunbeams perched between ; 
Hasten, wistful, willing foot, 

'Cross the velvet slopes of spring ; 
Clasp the fairest, blue-veined palm, 

For love's tenderest offering. 



38 DECORA TION DA V. 

Gather for the field of death, 

Every germ that May unfolds ; 
Spill the aromatic breath 

That each slender chalice holds, 
O'er the well remembered turf 

Where we laid away our dead, 
While the motto on our flag 

Deeper burned in every thread. 

When the rain of apple-blooms 

Floods the hollows, scooped below; 
And from out the meadow-thorn, 

Leaps light shafts of fragrant snow ; 
If, in all the busy year, 

We forgot them for a day. 
Swells a reminiscent tear 

O'er their ever-cherished clay. 

Though unheralded their deeds. 

And their praise be never sung ; 
When their country told her needs, 

They from home's sweet thrall up-sprung ; 
Onward, where, 'mid valiant ranks. 

Stung with bullets through and through — 
Hearts were giving out their blood ; 

Souls were being born anew. 

If there be a drowsy bud 

Dreaming on the couch of May ; 
Or a wanton bit of bloom 



ONE SUMMER, 39 

Dallying lightly on the way ; 
If there be a shy, wild rose, 

Hiding deep its heart of red. 
Waft it hither, helpful gale, 

As a tribute to our dead. 



ONE SUMMER. 

We watched the sky when the sun went down ; 
And the morrow, we said, would bring fair 
weather ; 
And so we smiled at the pleasant things 

We would do together : — 
Row on the river where smooth the tide — 
Or listen the wave-song just beside ; 
Or out through the wood-paths wind and wind, 
Leaving the dust-browed world behind. 

We would gather the apple-blooms that blush 

On the orchard's cheek, and, our hair adorning, 
Dream of another hill's pink flush 

In our life's fresh morning : 
Lending our hearts to the cunning cheat, 
That not so far our unresting feet 
From the dear old paths of the past had led : 
This when the heart of the rose grew red. 



40 ONE SUMMER. 

And, as we waited, the morrow burst, 

Entrancing all with the nameless glamour 
Of blended vapor, and shine of sun. 

And the sweet, wild clamor 
Of birds, light-fluttering here and there ; 
While weirdly stole on the sensuous air, 
Such strains as the lonely sea-heart sighs 
When a lovely and loving Peri dies. 

And a spell was upon us — such as falls 

When the moon's white oars down a silent river 
Are dipping low ; and the stars' pure glow 

In a restful quiver : — 
A witching spell — for an opal flood — 
With a radiant wave swept vale and wood ; 
And we dared no speech, lest the accents start 
From its wrapt repose the unguarded heart. 

Oh, the noon seemed hanging so far away ; 

And the night-feet — they w^ould be long in trip- 
ping ; 
And so we lay on the rosy day 

With the moments slipping : 
And leaves of poppies upon our eyes ; 
And our souls enthralled by the balm that lies 
In a jasmine cup, when by sweet rains driven, 
The fair, frail thing from its stem is riven. 

We dreamed our dreams and forgot the rest; 
Nor recked how the hours were flying — flying ; 



A WINTER NIGHT. 4 1 

Or men were born, or a babe lay pressed 

To a mother dying : 
The world moved on, and the sky turned gray, 
And the sun crept out from the dusk-rimmed day : 
We planned our plans, but the hours were fleet, 
And the summer only a pleasing cheat. 






A WINTER NIGHT. 

Listen to me, winds that bellow through the ice 

gates, left ajar 
By the blue-white seas that glisten 'neath the Arctic 

moons afar ; 

Listen to me, waves, uplifted 'gainst the rocks ye 

cannot break, 
Till the quiet shore is startled, and its million eyes 

awake : 

Bate ye both your troublous breathing ; there is that 
within my breast — 

With the night's strange sadness o'er me, that out- 
rivals your unrest ; — 

For the frozen air seems peopled with the shapes of 
human woe. 

Voicing full the speech of suffering, in a dull, con- 
tinuous flow ; — 



42 A WINTER NIGHT, 

As the restless roar of waters when the clouds out- 
pour their rain, 

And the tempest fiercely riots o'er the wide and 
wasted main. 

On the hoary wings of darkness, cries of cruel wrongs 

are borne. 
And, where break the sobs of anguish, souls are 

praying for the morn. 

In their kennels starved dogs huddle ; in their stalls 

wait shivering steeds, 
For the master that forgets them in their almost 

human needs. 



Where the bare woods bend and tremble, in the 

silence and the snow. 
Fall the dead birds from the branches, as the hopes 

of long ago. 

In the refuge of a thicket, where the summer green 

once lay. 
Lies the wild stag, weak and panting, from his old 

haunts far away ; — 

While along the river courses, winds his famished, 

sad-eyed mate, 
With her tottering hoof uncertain, and the strange 

paths desolate. 



A WINTER NIGHT. 43 

And I hear the children moaning — moaning — 

moaning as in pain, 
For the hunger-fiend sits lapping fast the red blood 

from each vein : 

And beside the unwarmed hearth-stone, mothers 

crouch in dull despair, 
Muttering low a woman's curses ; praying loud a 

woman's prayer, 

As they watch the lights a-glimmer in the mansion 

on the hill, 
And they hear the merry dancers, and the music — 

glory still ; — 

Though the bells have rung a midnight, never bell 

intoned before, 
And the stars are gazing eastward towards the morn's 

un6pened door. 

Waves that lash the rocks that bleed not : winds that 

smite the stolid pine. 
Ye have told the world your sorrows many an hour, 

now listen mine ! 

From the valley, from the upland, from wherever 

men divide 
Night and day wdth fret and folly, inter-woofed with 

foolish pride ; 



44 ^ WINTER NIGHT. 

Comes a cry from out the human that so girds our 

souls with clay, 
As if sorrow, as a warden, shut the laughter-light 

away : — 

As if life's divinest gladness were to-night a thing 

for jeers, 
And the earth were full of mourners, and the stars 

were raining tears. 

If, across the walls of darkness, stretching eastward, 

there might fall 
But a reddish-golden quiver, unloosed by the day's 

soft call, 

Then should rise my troubled spirit from its crouch- 
ing by the fire. 

Listening to the night's wild anthems, borne on air- 
wings high and higher ; 

And forget, in God's grand sunlight, the disquiet 

and unrest 
Born of silence and of darkness, in an over-wearied 

breast. 



THERE WERE THREE. 45 



THERE WERE THREE. 



DEDICATED TO A BEREAVED MOTHER, 



Listen ! there were three of them, 
Clustering on a sheltered stem ; 
There were three ; and as they grew, 
Watched my heart, lest wind, or dew, 
Or the unloosed tides of rain 
Rend the tender stalk in twain ; 
There were three that gladdened me, 
Clustering on our household tree, 

There were three ; oh, riven bough, 
Where are gone my rose-buds now ? 
Yestermorn they smiled for me 
In the sunshine ; there were three, 
Sheltered from the sun's red blaze, 
And the wind's unfriendly ways ; 
But a frost has stripped the tree. 
And not one is left to me. 

There were three about my knee — 
Babes that sweetened all for me ; 
Red of lip and soft of cheek ; 
Words are weak : why should I speak ? 
Need I count them yet again, 
With this agonizing pain 



46 THROUGH THE KEYHOLE. 

Tearing at the fresh-torn sore, 
At my being's bleeding core ? 

There were three ; I cannot see 
One of all about my knee ; 
In my empty arms to-night, 
Not one nestles — oh, the blight ! 
Voice no speech to comfort me ! 
Every bud stripped from the tree ; 
Voice no speech ! my heart is dead ; 
Are you listening ? three, I said. 

There were three ; they say to me, 
It were well my babes should be 
Rescued from the snares and strife. 
And the wrong of after life ; 
But, oh, empty arms ! oh, heart 
Burning with a cureless smart ! 
Words are mockery to me — 
Not one left — and there were three. 



Ml 



THROUGH THE KEYHOLE. 

Two lovers — I peeped through the keyhole ; 

Hope 'twas a commendable peep — 
Sat breathing sweet nothings by moonlight 

When sensible folks were asleep. 



THROUGH THE KEYHOLE, 47 

They said — but why need I repeat it ? 

'Twas whispered, you know, nothing more, 
While the round moon laughed in at the window, 

And I — through a hole in the door. 

Two hands were clasped fondly as could be ; 

Two faces were radiant with joy ; 
For I spied ^mong the silvery moonbeams, 

Sly Cupid, the mischievous boy : 
And the fair cheek grew rosy with blushes 

When hinted they two should be wed ; 
While the round moon laughed in at the window. 

And I — through the keyhole instead. 

Years had flown, as the dust of a desert 

When tempests leap down from the sky ; 
And I thought of the rapturous lovers 

I peeped through the keyhole to spy. 
Were they whispering still in the moonlight, 

And building gay castles in air ? 
So I found them one morn, but discovered 

No trace of the loverly pair. 

Small editions in calf ranged the parlor, 

With knots in their carroty hair ; 
All their thoughts bent on divers gymnastics 

On sofa, and table, and chair ; 
And low-cradled a drowsy-eyed dumpling 

Lay languidly thrashing the flies ; 
While I searched for the olden-time lovers, 
No lovers, alack, met my eyes. 



48 HOME, 

And I glanced at a tired little figure, 

Bent low o'er some unfinished seams, 
And then side-long the while at the master, 

And wondered if these were the dreams 
That bewitched the blest hours with their brightness 

In the sweet time ere they two were wed, 
When the round moon laughed in at the window, 

And I — through the keyhole instead. 



HOME. 

'Mid the heart-breaks of life come and see, come 

and see 
What the world holds for me. 



Modest-roofed and low-walled is the nest where I 

hide, 
From the roughness outside. 



Swing the door softly shut, that no treacherous feet 
Tread this restful retreat. 

Push the bolt, lest a breath from the simoon of sin 
Flutter stealthily in. 

Draw the blinds, that we see not the shipwrecks that 

float 
The bold sea-main ; or note, 



THE OLD STORY. 49 

How great gales rend the sails, and the rocks cringe 

with fear — 
Only warm winds breathe here. 

Could the sunshine of morn touch with heaven's 

own kiss 
Fairer harbor than this ? 

Hark ! the legions that wait on the mandates of 

hate 
Pause and press at the gate. 

But so homely a threshold, so humble a nest, 
They but scorn to molest. 

Marvel not that I love these low walls ; incomplete, 
With a world at my feet. 

Were life's gifts, if no sheltering wall 'twixt my soul 
And the breakers' wild roll. 



THE OLD STORY. 

Shoe-deep in the sweet meadow clover, 
The sun-wooing, clustering clover. 
With buttercups sprinkled all over ; 



50 THE OLD STORY, 

And pansies and blue-bells and roses — 

Rare, red-hearted, passionate roses, 

That weep when the night 'round them closes ; 

We stood, with warm hands clasped together, 
With hearts, aye, with lives leashed together, 
One morn in the royal June weather ; 

And heard the soft wind-pipes a-blowing — 
The pipes from green sea-gardens blowing 
Where glad sails forever are going, 

And coming again on the morrow — 
The hope-sounded, radiant morrow, 
With never a hinting of sorrow. 

Oh, rain of bright leaves on the mosses ! 
Oh, flood of bright rain on the mosses ! 
Beside where the brook creeps and crosses — 

Adown the lone paths to the river — 
Adown the worn ways to the river. 
Your flash sets my heart all a-quiver ; 

For stand we no more clasped together — 
With hands, aye, with souls leashed together, 
As once in the royal June weather ; 

Shoe-deep in the pink-tufted clover — 
The nodding and up-smiling clover, 
With buttercups spangled all over ; 



APRIL SECRETS, 5 I 

Nor recked if the winds should come blowing — 
From sea-cliffs, ice-whitened, come blowing ; 
Or brooks bear dead leaves in their flowing. 

The vintage glows purple and pendent — 
From trellis, high-arching, glows pendent ; 
And upland and glade blaze resplendent 

With fires of October's fierce glory — 
October's weird, wonderful glory : 
What matters it ? 'tis the old story : 

A dream in the summer's completeness — 
The summer's unrivalled completeness ; 
And gone with the breath of its sweetness. 



APRIL SECRETS. 

A FETE ! a fete in the forest halls ! 

For the jublilant, tell-tale gales are humming ; 
And echo to whispering echo calls, 

That the queen is coming ; 
The queenliest queen of them all, fair May : 
O lone wood-spirits, a holiday 
For you shall be, for the gales are humming 

The queen is coming. 



52 CRY OF THE CLIPPED STEED. 

Ha ! ha ! such tales as the babbling tongue 

Of the brook to the listening morn is telling 
With merry speech, and the buds have sprung — 

With their bosoms swelling — 
To catch the secret ; and all a-hush 
To hear the babble leans low the thrush : 
Ha! ha! what tales — with the young buds swel- 
ling— 

The brook is telling ! 

O forest children, make bright your halls ! 

The secret is out — the queen is coming : 
Festoon with garlands the rugged walls, 

For the gales are humming 
The sweetest things of the rose-crowned May ; 
Shy oriole, swinging on yonder spray, 
Pipe to the world what the gales are humming — 

The queen is coming. 



CRY OF THE CLIPPED STEED. 

We are but brutes, and not pets of society, 
Pricking each other with velvet-sheathed pins ; 

Foaled in a meadow, and clothed by the Infinite, 
In texture fine as the silk-lady spins : 



CJ^V OF THE CLIPPED STEED, 53 

Brutes that aspire not to Senate, nor ballot-box : 
Brutes, of no creed, or no countr}-', or clan, 

Yet we appeal to you, friends of the suffering. 
You whose dumb slaves we are, master and 
man. 

We have borne hardships and wrong uncomplain- 
ingly, 

Goaded and lashed, over-worked and ill-fed : 
Parching with thirst, though cool rills bubbled every- 
where : 

Left in the cold, till we wished we were dead : 
But we lay claim to a Christian immunity 

From this last insult ; oh, could ye not spare 
Pity enough from your boasted humanity. 

But to keep vandals from stripping us bare ? 

"Clipping," you call it, eh? classical term, is it? 

Stealing our raiment with light bandied jeers : 
Oh, we could weep at the cutting indignity 

Pressed at the point of your keen-bladed shears : 
Chilled to the marrow, rheumatic, and skin-frosted : 

Shorn of our pride, with no right to say " neigh '' : 
If God should ask you, some day, why you treat 
us so, 

What would your answer be ? what would you say ? 



54 FROM MY WINDOW. 



FROM MY WINDOW. 

All day long — all day long, up and down 

Through the town ; 

In and out, 
Men go restlessly moving about ; 

Ever pushing, 

And rushing. 
With faces a-wrinkle with worry, 

And hurry, 

And doubt ; 
And I ask myself ten times a day — 

With a wearisome languor at heart — 
As I watch the frail children of clay, 

In the street's irresistible mart, 
What is it — what is it about — 

All this rushing, 

And pushing ; 

This hurry 

And worry, 
What is it — what is it about ? 

'Round the corner they come and they go. 
As the waves on the beach, to and fro ; 

Come and go, 

Fast or slow. 
With a purpose determined if vain, 
That may fail them again and again. 



FROM MY WINDOW. 55 

As it failed them so often before ; 
With the same street, the same ground gone o'er : 
'Round the corner they go, and they come ; 
Strangely silent, as if each were dumb : 

One by one 
Drifting ceaselessly hither and yon ; 
Touching hands with their thoughts far away : 
And I ask myself ten times a day, 
Is there anything better for these, 
Weary-shouldered, bent-browed, and sad-eyed, 
Tossed each morn on the care-crowded tide 

Of wild seas, 

Whose strong waves 
Hide so many invisible graves. 

Is there nothing but toiling for bread. 
From the rise of the sun, till he rest 
With his head on a cloud's loving breast, 

Down the west? 
Is there nothing but toiling for bread, 
From the earliest snow-drop of spring. 
Till next year come the blue-birds to sing ? 
From the youth of a year, to the time 
When his beard w^ears the whiteness of rime ? 

Only bread 
When so many the souls to be fed ? 



Is the ravishing music of June 
Out of tune ? — 



56 THE POET. 

And the birds, and the soft dron_ng bees ? 

Or the breeze 

'Mong the trees, 
That they pause not to listen, but hurry 
With faces a-wrinkle with worry : 
Is the beauty of earth and of sky 
Nothing worth, that they pass it all by ; — 

Rushing on — 

Pushing on — 
With a meaningless smile, or a frown, 

Up and down — 

Through the town : 
And I ask myself ten times a day, 
Is there anything better for these 

Than this race — 

This wild chase — 
After something that only may please 

For a day ? 

Or for bread 
When so many the souls to be fed ? 



THE POET. 

He sings because the song is in him, 
As birds in the new woods of May : 

And all our world-ways may not win him 
From his lone music-moods away : 



TIRED. 57 

He hears afar the hammer beating 

A million shapes of destiny : 
And hiding still, he keeps repeating 

His simple notes of minstrelsy. 

Save when the tears of night-fall glisten, 

And 'mong the stars, her way along 
The sad moon winds, we will not listen — 

We will not listen to the song 
The singer pipes, as one in dreaming, 

That sees • — beyond his narrow zone — 
A radiant shore, with fair lights gleaming 

That glimmer never on his own. 



Ml 



TIRED. 

" Tired ! " oh, I see, little woman, 

Pale as a milk-white rose, 
That nods all day at the lily-cups, 

And weeps when the sunshine goes. 

Is the ache in your head, or heart, love. 
That your lips moan forth such pain ? 

" So tired ! '' and the low words seem to me 
As sad as the midnight rain. 



58 TIRED, 

On the clover a rare bloom resteth ; 

And the world is wondrous fair ; 
But the lids of your hazel eyes droop low, 

As if unshed tears were there. 

Is the thought to your life a gladness, 

That you were a woman born, 
Instead of yon patient, large-eyed brute, 

That plougheth the springing corn ? 

Or a bird, that sleeps in the moonlight. 
And wakes at the hint of dawn, 

To croon all day the sweet hours away. 
While the world goes on — goes on ; 

While the world goes on, little woman, 

Pale as a rose milk-white, 
That droops when the lonely stars walk forth 

In the hushed and haunted night. 

With your sad eyes on me, darling. 

Give me your slender hand, 
And tell if the ache is in head, or heart ? 

" So tired ! '' oh, I understand. 

To climb where the stars gaze downward — 
With the white clouds at your feet ; 

And bask in the hush of a nameless bliss, 
Aloof from the w^orld-he art's beat : 



TWO SONGS. 59 

To grope below in the darkness, 

With Heaven so far away ; 
And search in vain for the sheltering arm 

That inclasped you yesterday : 

To grieve with a helpless grieving ; 

And wearily watch and wait 
For the treasures your life has somewhere lost ; 

This — this is your woman's fate. 






TWO SONGS. 

A SONG was mine in other days, 
With rose-buds in my button-hole, 

And eyes with passion all ablaze, 
And love-fires raging in my soul ; 

All for a girl with ruby lips. 

And cheeks with dimples always coming ; 

But not the same — ah, no — that now 
You hear me humming. 

Tune shaped itself, I could but sing 
Regardless quite of rule or rote. 

For youth was such a glorious thing, 
And love had birth in every note ; 



6o TWO SONGS. 

And all the grand-spread world was mine, 

With airy schemes and castles plenty, 
And then I knew it all, you see 
What fools at twenty. 

My tune is changed : pray look at me ! 

No more the splendor of cravat — 
Or foot that minced so daintily, 

Or hair pomatumed, and all that ; 
But stout and stoic, with my locks 

By snows of many winters grizzled; 
And if I breathe a song at all, 

'Tis, somehow, whistled. 

And yet — not in the merry mood 
Of those old sentimental days ; 

When Hope-birds chirped in every wood. 
And set my foolish heart ablaze ; 

But with the rise and fall of stocks, 
And general craze of half our species 

With some new quagmire said to teem 
With golden fishes. 

I fought the world : — the world struck back, 
And laid me prostrate on the field. 

With all my music hushed. Alack ! 
What may the weaker do but yield ? 

My notes are promises to pay, 

And I am out of tune completely : 

Who would imagine that my voice 
Once piped so sweetly ! 



BABIE LOU, 6l 

With rose-buds in my button-hole ! 

It seems a hundred years, or more, 
Since passion all my senses stole, 

And I crooned love-songs o'er and o'er, 
All for a girl with dimpled cheeks, 

Just born for my entire enslaving : 
Ha ! ha ! no witchery like that 
Now sets me raving. 



BABIE LOU. 

'TwAS just before the summer waned, 

With bees and blossoms everywhere ; 
And sun and shade by streamlet played, 

Making the earth more fair ; 
That, where the gold-rimmed cloudlets hung, 

A white-winged dove drooped softly through, 
And fluttered, panting, to my breast ; 
'Twas our own Babie Lou. 

And then we fell to wondering. 

If 'mong the shining seraph-throng 
They well might spare a thing so fair. 

Or if 'twould tarry long. 
And with each morn a fear was born, 

That wildly through my being swept ; 
Still, Baby Lou, with eyes of blue. 
Upon my bosom slept. 



62 LEAF-FALL. 

And spring's warm winds began to hum 

Their changeful matins at our door, 
To coax the crocus from its couch, 
As many a spring before. 
And summer showers, and summer flowers, 

Should soon, we said, light all anew ; 
And garlands fair deck the bright hair 
Of laughing Babie Lou. 

But while we laid our loving plans. 

All strangely came and went her breath , 
And her white eyelids folded shut ; 

And then, we knew 'twas death ; 
Nor summer showers, nor summer flowers, 

Nor song of bird, nor shine of dew, 
Nor voice of love may waken her — 
Our sleeping Babie Lou. 



LEAF-FALL. 

Oh, the murmurous, musical patter 

Of leaves raining down ! 
How the woods spill their gold in the hollows, 
And leaf after leaf floats and follows. 

In crimson and brown ; — 
Till rich-robed the dull slope of the hillside, 

O'erlooking the town. 



'i^ 



LEAF-FALL. 63 

Call me not back, imperious voices, 

That ring through the street, 

With the traffic and toil of the races ! 

My heart is not there : here its place is — 
However it beat, 

See ! the jewels that crown the pale autumn 
Lie loose at my feet. 

Can ye offer me anything fairer — 

Fair world that ye are ? 
Well I know — and ^tis scarce worth the knowins: — • 
The gifts of your choicest bestowing — 

Confess if ye dare ! — 
To the soul bring disquiet and longing ; 

A cheat and a snare. 

Be it silent — the whir of the treadmill; 

What matters it, pray ? 
Fierce and fiercer the care conflict wages 
As later suns orb down the ages ; 

I will not to-day 
Break a stone for the world-builded temples, 

Let others who may. 

Then, my beautiful, cover me over ; 

Shut out from my breast. 
All life's intrigue, and falsehoood, and clamor ; 
One hour I would dream in this glamour. 

The dreams of the blest ; — 
And give free rein to riotous fancy, 

Forgetting the rest. 



64 THEN. 



THEN. 

All the wrong shall have gone from me then - 
All the wrong, as if ne'er it had been. 

They will say — gazing down on my face, 
With no sensitive shrinking, or trace 

Of the world-touch that grooved it so deep — 
She has found the blest refuge of sleep ; 

And the sweet pain of life, and the tears. 
All dropped out with the slow dropping years. 

All the wrong shall have gone from me then — 
When my dead hands are folded, and when 

The poor clay I am fashioned of, lies 
The most helpless thing under the skies : 

With no need, no desire any more 
For the foolish disguise once it wore. 

They who trusted and loved me through all, 
Shall with tenderest pity recall 

The sad frailty, and folly, and fear, 
That so thwarted and followed me here. 

All the wrong shall have gone from me then : 
Though they gaze down again and again, 



AFTERWARD. 65 

On the marble of temple and cheek, 
On the lips that will never more speak ; 

On the care-parted, smooth-lying hair, 
They will find but death's purity there. 

Only wait, oh, grieved hearts, you that feel 
All my haste-uttered words, nor reveal 

How they hurt, how they sting as they fall, 
Yet forgiving and loving through all. 

With sweet-worded excuse ; only wait 

Till my feet shall have passed the dim gate — • 

Leading out from our world-bounded ken ; 
All the wrong shall have gone from me then. 






AFTER WARD. 



SILVER WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. 



Spring may boast of early snowdrops, and the first 

green of the year ; 
And the glad, wild bursts of music, ravishing a world 

to hear. 



66 AFTERWARD. 

As the singer, fresh from dipping in the cool of April 
rains, 

Shakes his wet plumes and rejoices in his own new- 
wakened strains. 

Oh, the ecstasy of being ! Oh, the joy ! But who 

will say, 
That the most triumphant morning breaks above the 

hills of May ? 

Who may hint the dawn is fairer than the soft-eyed 

afternoon. 
With the exquisite aroma born with every breath of 

June ? 

Not alone from hawthorn hedges, near whose pale 

bloom lovers stray ; 
In the magic May-time gloaming, hope croons low 

her roundelay. 

All the summer, all the summer, trip her jewxl-san- 

daled feet, 
'Cross the bee-sipped fields of clover and the waving 

of the wheat. 

Through the summer to the vintage, till the snow's 

white mystery 
Presses back the lifted earth-pulse, ever — ever sing- 

eth she. 



OUT FROM THE SHORE, 6/ 

Spring may boast of early verdure, and the first buds 

of the year ; 
But, with roses later blowing, heaven seems bending 

sweetly near. 



LOVE'S MONOTONY. 

Should I dream of my love all night long, 
Should I listen her prattle all day, 
Though as sweet as an oriole's song, 
'Neath the white thorn's full blossoming spray, 
In the freshness and fragrance of May, 

I would cry to the stars, " Let me go ! 
Let me go, I am weary of this ! " 
Love is sweetness and beauty, I know, 
But love cloys with its too frequent kiss, 
And expires in a surfeit of bliss. 



OUT FROM THE SHORE. 

Softly, oh, footsteps ! a child-life is going 
Out in the darkness, unknown and unknowing. 

Hush your rude clamor, oh, world ! speak in whispers, 
That her young ear catch the welcoming vespers. 



68 OUT FROM THE SHORE. 

Out from the shore — see how pallid her face is ! 
And the white eyelids fold down to their places. 

Out from the shore — now the vapors enfold her — 
Forward, oh, weak arms, seize quickly, and hold her! 

Gently, good boatman, my one love is going 
Out in the darkness, unknown and unknowing. 

Tenderly bear her across the sad river ; 

Then shall my heart bless you, boatman, forever. 

Shield my poor darling with womanly pity. 
Till reaching the gates of the wonderful city. 

Make for her dear head a safe-lying pillow, 
While dip your oars 'neath the measureless billow. 

Rock the boat gently ; the cold waves grow deeper ; 
See, how they threaten the beautiful sleeper ! 

Pale, silent boatman, my heart's all a-quiver 
With the deep moan of the black rolling river. 

How can I bear it, oh, stars, kindly bending; 
Is there a balm for this grief — or an ending? 

W^ill there a morn that my arms shall not miss her ? 
Or my warm lips never hunger to kiss her ? 

Will there a rose never burst into blossom, 
With this keen agony gone from my bosom ? 



IF. 69 

Or a wild oriole gushing with sweetness, 
Cheer me again with his song of completeness ? 

How can I bear it, oh, stars, kindly bending, 
Is there a balm for this grief — or an ending ? 



IF. 

If the sky were always fair, 

And across its azure limit 
Not a cloud nor shadow dare 

Float, to darken or to dim it : 
If the green were on the grass. 

And the crimson on -the clover ; 
And the roses — as you pass — 

Blush a deeper red all over : 
If the birds would always sing — 

Oriole, and lark, and linnet ; 
If the year were one sweet spring, 

With no weary winter in it : 

If the year were one sweet spring ; 

Listen to me, laughing Hadie, 
You would be the fairest thing 

In the landscape, bright, or shady : 
With your brown, unbraided hair, 

And the sunshine tangled through it ; 



70 UNFORGOTTEN, 

And your dimples, that ensnare 
More than all, if but you knew it ; 

And a something nameless still, 
In your eyes' magnetic splendor, 

Taming my imperious will, 
Till it loyally surrender. 

If, my Hadie, if those eyes 

Were a trifle less uncertain ; — 
Hiding in demure disguise, 

'Neath their whitely folded curtain 
Now as blue as summer morn ; 

Now as dark as starless ocean ; 
Now a hazel, mischief-born, 

Just to keep my heart in motion : 
Hadie ; Hadie ; if I knew, — 

If my own could e'er discover 
What the nameless charm in you, 

Turning every friend to lover ! 



Ml 



UNFORGOTTEJSr. 

Ah, do you remember 
That shot at Fort Sumter, 
And how it came thrilling 

Our great-hearted North ? 
And how, in the shadow 



UNFORGOTTEN. 7 1 

Of threatened disaster, 
With good-byes unspoken, 
They sternly went forth ? 

Our willingest conscripts — 
Unurged and undaunted; 
Our brothers, our lovers. 

Our darlings of all — 
To sleep in damp trenches, 
To languish in prisons. 
To die unattended, 

And none within call. 

How grandly they bore it ! 
Those boys reared so tender, 
With flesh hot and swollen, 

And lips parched with pain ; 
No halting — poor fellows, 
But on in the darkness — 
Still marching — still marching — 

All night in the rain. 

There may have been faith-breaks 
'Mong high-spoken kinsmen, 
For which only bloodshed 

Would seem to atone ; 
There may have been heroes, 
Somewhere in earth's kingdoms. 
As valiant and loyal, 

But these were our ow7i ! 



^2 UNFORGOTTEN, 



Our own in the peril 

Of war's desolations — 

Of shell-battered ramparts — 

And comrades shot dead ; 
And ours in the safety, 
Or shame of a country, 
Whose flag drooped and shivered 

At treason's foul tread. 

And theirs the sad glory 

Belonging to martyrs, 

Whose names reach high heaven 

Through prowess below ; 
And theirs the sweet ending 
Of life's fier}'- battles 
Whose fallen strew thickly 

The paths we must go. 

For us — not the triumph 
That flushes the victor 
When ended the conflict 

Of life against life ; 
But only the anguish 
Of hopelessly waiting 
For those coming never 

To tell of the strife. 

Fair May day; rare May day; 
Shall love not remember 
The tenderest tribute 



TRAILING ARBUTUS, J I 

That love may bestow ; 
When all the green woodlands 
Are smiling and nodding, 
With arms full of flowers 

For those walled below? 

Then gather the sweetest, 
From meadow and wildwood, 
Oh, living ! oh, loving ! 

And scatter them here ; 
While sad recollection 
Recalls the old struggles ; 
Nor blush, if there glitter 

Among them a tear. 



# 



TRAILING ARBUTUS. 

Why hide any longer, sweet. 

Away from, the world and me ? 
With loving and loyal feet, 
I have sought your lone retreat ; 
Whatever the reason be, 
Come forth for my heart to see. 

Oh, beautiful, winsome thing. 
First-born of an April day ; 
What song shall my full heart sing 



74 THE POET'S KINGDOM, 

In the glad and gala spring ? 
What words shall I find to say, 
But to coax you out to-day? 

Uncover your bosom, sweet, 

And toss to the winds your hair, 
Where the hues of seaweed meet, 
And, sun, with your gold-shod feet, 
Climb down through the April air, 
And fondle a thing so fair ! 



THE POETS KINGDOM. 

Swings it aloof, by zephyrs wafted, 
Beyond our own low-reaching sphere ? 

Or fold the sea's white arms around it. 
Lest soulless worldlings press too near ? 

Or, hiding deep in forest stretches, 
A realm of cool. Arcadian bowers ? 

Tell us, ye Muses, winging ever 
'Twixt that and ours. 

Rise those high walls, of jewels fashioned 
As best befits the builder's art 

Who buildeth domes for songs immortal, 
Born 'mong the green hills of the heart ? 

One gate alone where souls may enter, 



OUR DEAD PRESIDENT. 75 

And carve their names upon a day, 
And call it Fame ? or are there many 
Leading the way? 

Hath any struggled through the portals, 
Save with an arrow in the breast ? 

As nightingale that sings the sweetest 
When 'gainst her own a thorn is pressed ? 

No mirthful mood — it has been hinted — 
Or frivolous, or jocund air, 

May join the lonely few up-climbing 
That phantom stair. 

Spell-bound, we stand apart and listen 

The melody of soul-swept lyres, 
Till in our own is lightly kindled 

The soft flame of divinest fires. 
We only know this mystic kingdom 

Lies in our midst, and yet no star 
Swinging its night-appointed circle, 
Seems half so far. 



OUR DEAD PRESIDENT. 

From the blue of a midsummer morning 
What anguish to tell ! 

At the loyal arched portal of freedom 
A bolt swiftly fell ; 



76 OUR DEAD PRESIDENT, 

And the life of our great-hearted leader 

Hung trembling half-way 
'Twixt the mystic unknown and the pathos 

Of care's brief to-day ; 
And we paled at the ghost of the future, 

That menacing stood, 
Where the walls of the temple were dripping 

With venom-spilled blood. 

Mocking Fate, and remorseless, stole never 

That midsummer morn, 
A wild-pleading, love-coaxing, to soften 

The iron of vour scorn, 
From the bride of his youth, whose white bosom 

Had lain 'gainst his heart. 
When the roses of hope shook their fragrance, 

And grief had no part, 
Ere your blade struck the life of a nation. 

In striking his own ; 
In our country's unwritten hereafter 

What gift may atone ? 

Lying dead in the silence and sorrow 

That shadow his home ! 
Who heeds now the white splendor that graces 

The Capitol's dome ? 
Shall a foot tread the broad-streeted city 

Unstung by a pain ? 
From our flag will the sweet dews of heaven 

Bleach out the foul stain ? 



FACES ON THE STREET. yj 

Cry aloud, stricken land, for the martyr, 

Slow racked as by fire, 
'Mid the flame-crackling fagots of hatred, 

On heresy's pyre ! 

Could the deep prayers of millions have saved him, 

Our hearts had not bled ; 
Could the fond arms of millions have held him, 

Then this were unsaid; 
That the foe in the long pending struggle. 

Proved stronger than he ; 
And his pure life fell crushed in the conflict ; 

From sea unto sea 
Breaks a sob for the dead ; honored mother, 

Brave watcher at home. 
Though you wait in your desolate doorway. 

No message will come. 



FACES ON THE STREET. 

There is hunger in the faces 

That we meet; 
Hopeless hunger in the faces 

On the street : 
Not for bread, or wine from Albion — 

^Cross the seas ; 
Nor for juices richly flavored ; ^ 

None of these. 



y8 FACES ON THE STREET. 

There is sadness in the faces 

Up and down ; 
Wistful sadness in the faces 

Of the town : 
Is it poverty, or losses, 

Or regret, 
Born of unsuccessful struggles — 

Bravely met ? 

There is sunshine in the faces 

That we meet ; 
Sunshine in the children's faces 

On the street : 
Though our own but gather shadows 

As the night ; 
In the faces of the children 

There is light. 

There are eager, questioning faces 

On the street ; 
How they probe our thin disguises, 

When we meet ! 
How they startle, how they stir us, 

Passing by, 
Till we turn, and watch and linger, 

W^ith a sigh. 

There are flushed and radiant faces 

Sweeping past ; 
With each rose-tint ever deeper 

Than the last : 



FACES ON THE STREET. 79 

Oh, the love, and light, and laughter 

Breaking through ! 
Oh, the nearness of Elysium 

To their view ! 

There are white and suffering faces 

That we meet ; — 
Pushing through the nameless tumult 

Of the street : 
Shall w^e follow ? See, how hollow ! 

See, how wan ! 
While our eyes with pity glisten. 

They are gone. 

There are faces that invite us. 

And beguile 
Half our fancy's sad divining. 

With a smile : 
Sweet, bewildering, tender faces 

On the street. 
That impel a daring homage, 

When we meet. 

There are faces — how they haunt us 

Day by day ! — 
Though we struggle to forget them 

Best we may : 
How they flash along the dusky 

Path of thought ! 
How they trouble us, by coming 

All unsought ! 



80 RAIN MUSIC, 

More of grieving than of gladness 

More, alas, 
Of mute yearning in the faces, 

As they pass : 
Is it poverty, or struggle, 

Or defeat, 
All this hunger in the faces 

On the street ? 



-71^ 



RAIN MUSIC. 

With a roof betwixt me and the 'clouds, 

That are spilling their floods 
Down the purple-gray mist that enshrouds 

All the woods, 
In their emerald glory and glow — 

Though too saddened the strain — 
There is music the sweetest I know 
In the rain. 

Tinkle ; tinkle ; oh, never more sweet 

Silver bells cross the lea : 
Pass ye on, giddy crowd, down the street ! 
Leave to me 



THE GRIEVED MUSE, 8 1 

The unquestioning silence — the rest 

Of no sound but the rain, 
Dripping nameless repose on the breast, 

And the brain. 

Tell and teach me the poet's rare art, 

Tender muse of the rain, 
While my soul sits alone, and apart 

From the main 
Where the world-ships toss noisily by, 

With their meaningless freight ; 
But for answer comes only a sigh 
While I wait. 



THE GRIEVED MUSE, 

What matters it now that ye came last year, 

When the day swooned low in the lap of night, 
With a rustle of wings that my soul could hear, 

Till her dull thought grew to a sudden white 
What matters it, that, but a moon ago — 

With the star-fire blazino^ on mv hair — 
You tapped at my casement, soft and low. 
Till under my eyelids shone a glow, 

That drank up the hot tears trembling there. 



82 THE GRIEVED MUSE, 

What matters it all that ye once were mine, 

And we sang together, or wept, or smiled ; 
And you taught me music, that gushed as wine 

From the sun-pricked heart of the vintage child, 
A^nd we sought the glades where the sky was fair ; 

And clambered the white rocks — lichen-grown — 
And crept, as far as the sunbeams dare — 
In the rifts where the wood-nymphs braid their hair, 

And the wdld-bird hangs her nest alone. 

But now, when my soul is kneeling low. 

With a plea impassioned, as those we hear 
Through the bars of doom, when the night winds 
blow, 

There is only a desert stretching near ; • 
And my life is parched with an unquenched thirst ; 

And a fiery breath seems girding me : 
No dripping rills from the hard rock burst : 
And the sun glares down as an eye accursed, 

With never a shelter of bush or tree. 

For ye hide from me, and I may not tell 

What hand hath builded the w^all between. 
That towers aloft as a citadel 

Upreared, till against the stars it lean : 
I only know that I dwell alone 

In the realm of thought when the day is done : 
With an unvoiced speech, and my heart than stone 
Holds less of passion ; my own — my own — 

What rival your smiles from my sight hath won ? 



APRIL. 83 



APRIL, 

Lift the white casement, and fling wide the shutter ! 

The south winds are humming ; — 
And waiting and waiting — with breath all a-flut- 
ter — 

To herald the coming 
Of life in dead forests, and clover-red meadows ; 

And herds softly lowing ; 
And down by the river the cool-lying shadows ; 

And wild roses blowing 
All over — all over the lane, and the wildwood, 

The hillock and heather ; 
With glad smiles of age, and light laughter of child- 
hood, 

And sunshine together. 

Loop the dull curtain ! each fold hides a gladness * 

Our lives well may covet : 
The earth-land lies fair, and no gray realm of sad- 
ness 

Hangs glooming above it : — 
But, blue where it presses the pine-mantled moun- 
tain. 

Whose arms safely cover 
The birdlings, breeze-rocked, o'er the night-sobbing 
fountain, 

In lone nests a-hover : 



84 APRIL. 

The white thorn is budding ; the vines clamber 
yonder; 

The clear air is ringing 
With trills of the tropics ; no wonder — no wonder 

The heart should go singing. 

Oh, lives all too weary ; I know it — I know it; 

The Aprils come only 
To mock you with dreams, sadder yet than the 
poet — 

When night gathers lonely 
And moonless around him, mourns, when he remem- 
bers, 

And tells to the muses : 
Your roof holds the rain, and your hearth-stone but 
embers, 

While faint you with bruises : 
The south winds caress you ; the proud sun is plead- 
ing; 

The grass-tufts are springing ; 

The thrush calls aloud, yet your soul lies unheeding, 
To sorrow still clinging. 



WILL THEY MISS ME? 85 



WILL THEY MISS ME? 

When I shall have done forever 
With life's slowly wasting fever, 

And unrest ; 
And the pain that comes of living ; 
And the hoping, and the grieving ; 
And the loving, and the hating, 
And the weary — weary waiting, 

From my breast 
Shall have gone, as the strange seeming 
Of a night of fitful dreaming. 
When the summer stars are gleaming 

In the west : 
And my heart — no more repeating 
O'er and o'er its heavy beating — 

Lies at rest ; 
Down below the world's mad riot, 
And its clangor and disquiet ; 

And I hide 
Where no sunny ray comes flashing. 

Warm and wide ; 
Or no jewelled rain-drop plashing ; 
Or no troop of children dashing 

Laughing-eyed ; 
Or no loving touch may find me 
'Neath the walls of turf that bind me ; 



86 WILL THEY MISS ME? 

And my weakness, and wrong-doing, 
And my foolish, vain pursuing, 

Shall at last 
Carelessly be spoken, only 
When the fireside groweth lonely, 
As a something we were reading 
Yesternight with thought unheeding. 

Of the past : 
Will there be an eye to glisten 

At my name ? — 
Or a gentle ear to listen — 

Though no fame 
Scatter deathless laurels on it. 
Or no greatness rest upon it. 

And not blame 
My poor life for its low reaching, 
When a higher, nobler teaching, 

Always came ? — 
Or an arm that would caress me — 

Were I there ? 
Will they miss me — will they miss me 

Anywhere ? 

Softly, as a twilight vesper, 
To my spirit steals a whisper 

Through the air ; 
" Add it not unto your sorrow, 
If the sunshine of to-morrow 

With its glare, 



WILL THEY MISS ME? 8/ 

Searching all the world's wide limit — 
From the lowlands to the summit, 

Must declare, 
They will miss you never, never. 

Anywhere." 
" Add it not unto your grieving, 
Or the pain that comes of living, 

But to know 
As the noon-blaze melts the vapor — 
As the wind-breath robs the taper 

Of its glow ; — 
As the echo fainter groweth. 
As the sweet day surely goeth — 

You shall go 
Out into the darkness lonely, 
With a moment's sorrow only 

At the door; 
Or a kind heart faster throbbing. 

Nothing more : 
And the world shall go its paces 

As before : 
And the faces — ah, the faces, 
In the old familiar places, 
Shall have lost the mournful traces 

That they wore. 
When you left them, softly sobbing. 

At the door : 
And the bells shall go on ringing. 
And the summer blossoms springing 

Just as fair : 



88 JUNE ROSES. 

And the step that used to meet you 

On the stair ; 
And the lips that used to greet you- 

(Hard to bear ;) 
May not show one trace or token, 
Of a farewell sobbed or spoken 

Lately there : 
When you shall have done forever 
With life's meaningless endeavor, 
They will miss you never, never, 

Anywhere." 



JUNE ROSES. 

Yet again your sweet breath weaves a spell Vound 
my being ; 

Climb up the cool wall 
Till my hands your bewildering beauty imprison — 
The fairest of all 
• In a world of fair blooms : each new-comer 
Dispels all the gloom from the summer; 
Climb up where I lean out the lattice ; I own it : 
My heart is in thrall. 

With the lute of a lover the wdnds come a-wooing — 

The fond winds of June ; 
And with rapt gaze and wistful I listen and listen 

Their soul-witching tune : — 



PROSPECT ROCK, 89 

The weird strains that I hear in my dreaming, 
When stars down the silence are gleaming; 
But you, oh you thrill me with deeper emotion, 
Rare darlings of June. 

Leave the maundering winds to their wooing, red 
roses. 

No wooer like you, 
With the passionate glow of June morns in your 

bosom 

Just freshened with dew ; 

And as pure as the white moon above you, 
And bright as a sunbeam. I love you ; 
Climb up for my kisses ; no lover your rival, 
Whoever may sue. 



PROSPECT ROCK, 

NEAR WILKESBARRE, PA. 

Oh, cold gray stone, I scarce may tell 

In which attire I love thee best ; 
With ice-pearls clustering on thy brow, 
Or roses on thy breast. 



90 PROSPECT ROCK, 

I see thee when the shy-eyed nymphs 

Pluck fragrant gifts for thy brown palms 
And when the winter's frozen throats 
Chorus their boisterous psalms. 

But no soft creep of loving blooms, 

Nor thunder-voicing tempest shock 
May wake in thee one trembling thrill, 
Oh, unimpassioned Rock ! 

Low kneel the blue hills at thy feet ; 
And the rough arms of cynic trees 
Reach up with reverential touch. 
To clasp thy granite knees. 

Lone stoic, 'mong the sighing pines ! 

Hath no coy tenderness upsprung. 

When fondling wrens upon thy robes 

Their careless nests have hung? 

If e'er a blush thy pale cheek tinged, 

'Twas when some tenant of the wood 
Twined garlands 'mong thy mossy locks, 
To coax a softer mood. 

But thou wert cold as ocean foam ; 

These winsome wooers have not won : 
Go, elfish idlers, woo, instead, 

The warm, eyes of the sun. . . . 



PROSPECT ROCK, 9 1 

Beneath the hazy autumn skies, 

I linger near thee yet again, 
While mournfully the cricket chirps, 
And the sad winds complain. 

My heart finds fellowship wdth thee. 

Oh, strangely solitary thing ! 

No hour, as that upon thy breast, 

So fleet upon the wing. 

Yon river seems a silvery trail ; 

The meadows wear a deeper green. 
As we, together, cloud-girt friend, 
Gaze down upon the scene. 

And from afar we hear the jar 

Of conflict, such as brave men know, 
That toil their weary round of years, 
Then sleep at last, so low. 

And slender spires point the vexed soul 

Still upward, to a fairer sphere, 
Where life shall be forever freed 
From woes that follow here. 

And, where the shadows deepest lie. 

And patriarch elms their circles fling, 
From many a softly lighted home 
We hear the children sing, 



92 PROSPECT ROCK, 

And care-bent age looks on, and smiles ; 
And youth is gladdened o'er its hopes : 
All this, and more, we watch the while, 
Across the valley-slopes. 
• • • • • 

Upon thy lap, oh, lonely friend, 

I lie and dream a thousand things : 
Lean nearer ; I would question thee, 
While yonder oriole sings. 

Say ; has ambition clambered here, 

To whisper all its mad-born schemes ? 
Or poet in thy stony ear 

Poured his impassioned dreams ? 

Has sober-eyed philosophy. 

In listless mornings, here reclined ? 
Or boyhood tossed its noisy shouts 
Upon the answering wind ? 

And, tell me, has no wretched life — 

To madness stung through many a year 
E'er longed to lay its burden down 
And sleep forever here t 

Nay, rocky lips, turn not away ! 

Repeat to me the story old. 
Those lovers whispered yesterday 
Beneath a sky of gold. 



THE EMPTY PURSE, 93 

Confess ; did'st thou no yearning own, 
When passion wove so sweet a spell, 
Filling the rosy air with sighs ? 

Thou bear'st love's witchery well. 

An exile thou, oh, mountain born : 

A mateless and un wedded thing : 
And no proud race of granite mould 
From thy cold loins shall spring. 

And hope, and love, and grief may cease 

Their honeyed words, or tender speech ; 
Nor smile, nor sigh, nor pleading prayer 
Thy heart of stone may reach. 






THE EMPTY PURSE, 

I AM clutching an empty purse, clutching it fast : 
Yet again would I search it, but, no — 'twas the last. 
The small silvery coin that lay on my hard hand 
This morning, and shone as a pearl in the sand : 
Not a single white dime jingles merrily there ; 
And I grasp it again with the clutch of despair. 
Let your lip curl a sneer, haughty cynic, or worse, 
But a tear glitters now o'er this silk-netted purse. 



94 THE EMPTY PURSE, 

I am dangling the empty thing still in the air, 

And the steel clasp gleams out in the moon's chilly 

glare : 
I've a cottage down yonder — a leaf-shaded nest, 
Where my little ones lie in the dreams of the blest; 
I've a wife, with soft blue eyes all brimming with 

tears ; 
Well she knows the hard stru2:2:le of care-burdened 

years. 
It is midnight, and past, yet the lamp burns at 

home ; 
Will she wait, will she watch all the night, till I 

come ? 

I've a cottage down yonder, but want revels there, 
And this empty purse gleams as the eye of despair, 
With its steel clasp locked firmly, though rust-stained 

and old, 
And its red lining guiltless the presence of gold : 
Bend ye lower, white moon ! tell me what I shall do, 
For this cold and this wretchedness pierce my heart 

through ; 
It is midnight, and past, ye.t I tremblingly stand 
With this lean-bodied, silk-netted purse in my hand. 

Oh ! 'tis not that the red wine has held me in 

chains. 
With my energies palsied, and fevered my veins ; 
'Tis not that these hands are unwilling to toil — 
No, as free as the sunbeams that mellow the soil, 



RAE. 95 

Would they strive for the helpless, and nest-gathered 

brood, 
Though 'twere drawing of water or hewing of wood ; 
All my life have I plodded with sweat on my brow, 
But the demon of w^ant fiercely throttles me now. 

I am dangling the empty thing still in my hand, 
And the steel clasp gleams out as the stars on the 

sand ; 
I am silently thinking of what I shall do. 
For this cold and this wretchedness pierce my heart 

through ; 
Will my sad-hearted darling, the light of my home, 
Watch and w^ait for my step all the night till I come ? 
Let your lip curl a sneer, heartless cynic — or 

worse — 
There are sobs breaking now o'er this silk-netted 



purse. 






RAE. 



I HAVE been thinkino: about vou all dav. 

Sorrowful Rae ; — 
Drooping your head as a rose in a gale, 

Languid and pale ; 
With your brown eyes of but seventeen years 

Flooded with tears. 
Has young Alphonso, with treacherous art, 

Broken your heart t 



96 RAE. 

Then gone off boasting how easy 'twas done ? 

Ah ! little one ; 
When will a woman — look here, sad brown eyes ! 

Learn to be wise — 
Holding her heart bravely back from the pit 

Love hides for it ; 
Though every passionate pulse of the soul 

Spurns the control, 
When seventeen shall have grown to ten more — 

Or a full score ; 
You will turn back with a throb of disdain 

Leaping each vein. 
That for one vow made by moonlight, unkept, 

You should have wept; 
Or the smooth words of a soft-bearded boy 

Ruffled your joy : — 
Binding your youth to a phantom of grief. 

When 'twas so brief. 
Oh, I could chide you, my poor little Rae, 

Moping all day 
Just for a white-fingered youth swinging by — 

Breathing a sigh : 
Wearing your heart, one must surely believe, 

Pinned on your sleeve, 
So that each passer might read, though he run, 

" Easily won.'' 

Promise me, foolish one, promise me now, 

Lifting your brow. 
That the shy glance of your chestnut-brown eyes 

Rest on the skies ; — 



MV LOOM, 97 

That when a wooer again comes along 

With a smooth tongue, 
Rounding fine speeches w^ith infinite skill — 

As they all will ; 
You will watch well every flutter and start 

Of your weak heart, 
Lest, as a pearl in the wide-throated sand — 

Slipped from your hand — 
It, too, should slip through the light-swinging door, 

As once before. 



MY LOOM, 

They tell me the world w^as not made for dreams. 

That life is a thing for toil, instead, 
And so to my task I turn again. 

And weave in my loom another thread. 
I hear the birds from the wildwood call, 

And the brook says " come," as it races by, 
And the roses woo from the garden wall, 

But I dare not — dare not make reply. 

I watch the shuttle the weavers throw — 
The weavers bent with a life-long toil ; 

For care builds many a loom, you know. 

Where the strong and the weak alike must moil 



98 APPLE BLOSSOMS, 

All day — all day, and far in the night ; 

Why not go chat with the birds instead ? 
But the master's eye is on me now, 

So I weave in my loom another thread. 

I shut my eyes to the tempter's wiles, 

And turn aside from the siren's call, 
And say I will let the troop go by. 

With never a longing wish at all : 
For the master stands with an upraised lash ; 

But a cloud comes waltzing down the sky. 
And a song is trilled 'mong the apple-blooms, 

And the threads in my hands unwoven lie. 



APPLE BLOSSOMS. 

When the fire in my fevered pulses shall have burned 

to loveless ashes ; 
And the day gone out forever ; and the stars for the 

last time faded, 
I wish you would lay me yonder, where the orchard 

shadows tremble. 
As they used, in the royal olden, that the waves of 

apple-blossoms 
May deluge my couch with beauty, in the ringing, 

rare May mornings, 



WOULD I? 99 

With the bobolink lightly swinging 'mong the blush- 
ing boughs and singing 

The strains that my heart would gladden, if it had 
not grown too weary 

Of the aimless trick of throbbing, and so from the 
world went hiding. 



WOULD II 

If I should go back some day — 

If the breath of a summer morn 
Should waft me, as if in play, 

To the spot where I was born ; 
And leave me a helpless child 

'Neath the roof that sheltered me, 
When the storm without was wild, 

Or the skies w^ere fair to see ; 

Would the creed of my childhood doubt 

Be merged in a glad romance, 
By the grand life stretching out, 

In a broad, untracked expanse ? 
Would the air wdth castles glow ? 

Or the clouds weep golden rain ? 
Would the years dare cheat me so. 

If I were a child again ? 



lOO WOULD I? 

If Fate should restore to me 

The joy of a vanished time, 
When I rocked on a rippling sea, 

Or roamed in a cloudless clime ; 
Would the glamour of youth again 

Be sullied by senseless tears ? 
Or the sting of a causeless pain 

Embitter the rainbow years? 

Would I love with the reckless faith 

That the soul of a woman dare ? 
And follow the same blind path — 

Each step but a cruel snare : 
Would the pangs of death be sweet 

If dying each day for one, 
That wandered with untrue feet 

To the shrine of an alien sun ? 

Would I pale with a woman's grief, 

Or flush v/ith a woman's scorn. 
Should the veil of m.y fond belief 

By a traitor's tooth be torn ? 
Would I break my foolish heart 

For the false words men might speak? 
Oh, tears from my eyes that start ! 

Oh, woman ! within so weak. 

If the wings of a summer morn 
Should carry me back, some day, 

'Mong the hills where I was born, 

I should wander the self-same way ; — 



INVOCATION TO SIEEP. 10 1 

With a treasure each morning lost, 
And a hope at each sunset fled ; 

And the things I loved the most 
Around me lying dead. 






INVOCATION TO SIEEP. 

NiGHT^s dull silences are throbbing from the moun- 
tain to the sea ; 

Thou hast lulled a world's wild tumults, yet thou 
comest not to me. 

Lightly on my snowy pillow, whitely on my slender 
hand, 

Creeps a wandering wave of moon-rise, ere it bur- 
nish all the land. 

From the purple-hooded midnight star-eyes languish 

into mine, 
With the dew of tender memories dripping all their 

downward shine ; 

Till the tempted life within me swoon beneath the 

sensuous rain — 
Swoon a moment, ere it flutter back to wakeful wars 

again : 



I02 INVOCATION TO SLEEP, 

And my soul, impaled, and panting ^mong her cap- 
tors, pleads with thee, 

That thine arms uplift and bear me safely 'cross the 
thought-rocked sea, 

Through the gates of the unreal, on whose glad and 

glittering shore, 
Flash unnumbered shapes of beauty, fair as Eden 

ever wore ; 

And our lost loves walk and wander by the waters 
cool and clear, 

Till forgotten how the passions sweep their sorrow- 
tempests here. 

Come to me, invisible charmer, from the shadows 
come to me ! 

Night's dull silences are throbbing from the moun- 
tain to the sea. 

Flower and leaf nod tremulously to the wind's low 
lullaby ; 

Bird and bee their wings have folded ; sweetly rest- 
ful all but I. 

Summer woods have ceased their waltzing ; hushed 

and slumbrous all the land ; 
Only elfins dance and dally on the moon-bedizened 

sand. 



FROST DOINGS, IO3 

Through the dim and dewy midnight, coy enchanter, 

steal to me ! 
Steal from out thy mystic hiding, whether cloud or 

wave it be : 

Whether wind and witching moon-beam, or the vapor 

on the hill, — 
In thy chaste embrace infold me, that my soul may 

roam at will. 

Where our lost loves lightly linger by the waters cool 

and clear, 
And forgotten all the bondage that enslaves life's 

purpose here. 



FROST DOINGS. 

Oh, something aileth the sighing forests, 
And something aileth the summer's breath. 

The winds swing by with a low complaining, 
And down by the meadow-brook hides Death. 

I search and search for a tuft of clover ; 

But other and stronger hands than mine 
Have dashed their whiteness across the midnight, 

And left of the clover's red no sign. 



104 LOVE'S LOSS. 



LOVE'S LOSS, 

Answer me, oh, busy brook, 

As you crook 
In and out the broken land — 

Through the sand ; 
Leaping, laughing with a will 

Down the hill ; 
Resting now, then off again — 

On the plain ; 
Swifter, swifter, all the while, 

Mile by mile, 
Till it seems you ne'er will stop. 

Till you drop 
All your music in the sea ; 

Answer me ! 

Did you hear a maiden sigh — 

Passing by? 
For she came this way, I know. 

Pacing slow, 
With a paleness on her cheek ; 

Did she speak 
Anything that you could hear ? 

Tell me, dear. 
Of a youth that went away 

Yesterday, 
Little caring that he left 

Me bereft, 



LOVE'S LOSS. 105 

Of a treasure that he took — 

Listening brook, 
Stole before my very eyes, 

The one prize 
That my poor life valued most, 

Loved and lost. 

Oh, the anguish ! oh, the smart 

At my heart, 
At the mention of his name ! 

Till he came. 
With a beauty out of place 

In his face, 
And his city airs so fine, 

She was mhie ! 
Many and many an eve gone by, 

She and I 
Wandered o'er the moonlit strand, 

Hand in hand, 
Painting all life's far-off slopes 

With our hopes ; 
And the time we should be wed ; 

This we said : 
We would build a cottage nest 

From the rest, 
Scorning, in a worldly sense, 

All pretence 
Of the idle and the great, 

Or their state ; 
If a field or so, to keep 

Milk-white sheep ; 



I06 LOVE'S LOSS, 

With the honest kine to feed 

At their need ; 
And a thriving garden patch — 

None might watch ; 
And upclambering to the eaves, 

GUstening leaves, 
Tangled with a scarlet sheen 

All between ; 
And a bed of green-hedged flowers 

Were but ours, 
Then we never need repine • 

She was mine I 

Oh, the agony, the smart, 

At my heart, 
When I think of how his smiles — 

How his wiles. 
Lured away my unwed bride 

From my side I 
Yet I could not — could not look. 

Pitying brook, 
In her darling eyes again, 

Without pain. 
And a burning blush of shame. 

Should I blame 
Her sweet self for changing so ; 

For I know 
He was handsomer than I, 

And would sigh 
Gallant nothings in her ear — 

Sweet to hear ; 



CHILD LILIAN, lO/ 

Bolder he, and better bred — 

So they said ; 
With his white hands soft enough : 

Mine, so rough : 
And his coat so fine — ah, me ! 

Plain to see 
How his world-taught subtle art 

Won her heart. 
Other friends would jeer and laugh, 

Knew they half 
How I struggle with my loss ; 

They would toss 
Ribald words at me ; but you, 
Brook, are true. 



CHILD LILIAN. 

Sit on my knee, child Lilian ; — 

Sit on my knee again ; 
For the summers since last I held you there 

Are linked with a broken chain. 

Ah, but that coy glance, Lilian, 

I had forgotten this : 
That I must not ask for a child-caress, 

Or the old familiar kiss ; 



I08 MV COTTAGE HOME. 

Now that my pet — half woman, 

Though yet a child to me, 
With a kind reproof in her downcast eyes. 

Is blushing deliciously. 

Forgive me the thought, sweet Lilian, 

That when I should come to-day, 
You would bound through the hall with open arms, 

In the old-time, eager way ; 

But you glide to me as timid. 

As shy as a startled fawn : 
A blushing maiden is beautiful. 

But I sigh for a childhood gone ; 

For you sat on my knee, then, Lilian, 

And romped in a famous way ; 
And turned the lock with a fearless hand, 

That you dare not touch to-day. 



m^ 

•^/T^ 



MY COTTAGE HOME. 

To his couch of mist crept the weary sun, 
And the day was done. 

The pearl-pure light of the moon lay white 
On the breast of night : 



MV COTTAGE HOME. I09 

And o*er the household a silence fell, 
As a mystic spell. 

Across the darkness there softly stole 
To my waking soul, — 

With a weird, wild beauty, the hazy gleam 
Of a mountain stream : — 

With foam as clear, in its sweep and swell, 
As the cool Moselle ; — 

And a sloping woodland wondrous fair, — 
And a cottage there : 

A cottage hidden from all the rest, 
As a wren's snug nest ; 

With a broad, brown roof, and low-latched door ; 
And a wide, w^orn floor ; — 

That I trod, when my foot seemed light with hopes 
As an antelope's ; 

And my life was glad as the dancing gleam 
Of the mountain stream : — 

For the lesson had not been taught me then, 

Of the world, and men. 
• • • • • 

The very same, and yet not the same, 

In the dream that came : 



no MV COTTAGE HOME. 

The sunny rooms with their faded walls, 
And the dusky halls ; 

The rusted hook where the bird-cage swung, 
And the singer sung ; 

The easy-chair, with its arms outspread 
For the weary head ; 

And a hundred somethings that made me start — 
With a throbbing heart. 

• • • • • 
The very same, and yet not the same, 

In the dream that came ; 

The winding river, and quaint old bridge 
And the hillside ridge ; 

The sparkle and foam of the waves below, 
With their murmurous flow ; 

The latticed porch, where the vines would cling ; 
And the gate a-swing ; 

The saucy maples that dashed the rain 
'Gainst the window pane ; 

And the robin that rocked on the topmost bough ; 
Does he rock there now ? 

• • • • • 
Strangers enter the open gate 

Where I used to wait ; 



OH, NO! Ill 

And throng, unheeding, the helpless door, 
That I press no more : 

And come and go at a careless call ; 
And none of them all 

E'er reck, if my hungry spirit roam 
To the dear old home 

'Neath the maples, hidden from all the rest, 
As a wren's snug nest ; — 

That was mine when my foot seemed light with 
hopes 

As an antelope's ; 

And the years flowed on, as the rippling gleam 
Of my own loved stream. 






OH, NO! 

Leave me not, oh, my darling ! 

Go not from my sight 
As a dream in the strangeness 

And stillness of night. 
What were life — what were loving 

And thou — as a star 
Gazing down in the distance, 

So far, oh, so far ? 



112 OH, NO! 

What were joy's brief existence, 

And thou not a-near ? 
Every heart-throb of gladness 

Should swell with a tear : 
What were sun-beam or moon-beam, 

Or night's loving star, 
And thou shut from my vision, 

So far, oh, so far ? 

Oh, come back to me, darling, 

And nestle thy head 
On this warm-beating bosom ! 

Not dead — oh, not dead ! 
Speak to me ! one word only I 

Refute their wild speech, 
That thy spirit hath journeyed 

Where love may not reach. 

Thy dark hair on the pillow ; 

Thy cheek waxen white. 
Wear the semblance of slumber — 

Not dying, to-night ; 
What were life — what were loving - 

And thou — as a star 
Shut apart from my vision, 

So far, oh, so far ? 



SEND THEM HOME TENDERLY. II3 



SEND THEM HOME TENDERLY. 

[The Governor of Massachusetts begged of the Mayor of Baltimore, that the 
bodies of the dead soldiers killed in that city be sent home tenderly.] 

Send them home tenderly ; 

Guard them with care, 
Eager eyes tearfully 

Watch for them there : 
Hearts that were yesterday 

Bounding and gay, 
Lie in their agony 

Breaking, to-day. 

Send them home tenderly — 

Back to the sod 
First by the refugee 

Puritans trod : 
Blue hills and ocean-wave 

Echo the prayer, 
Send them home tenderly ; 

Love waits them there. 

Send them home tenderly, 

Poor, breathless clay. 
Yet w^hat brave hopefulness 

Bore them av/ay ! 
Hand to hand, clingingly 

Linked in sweet trust ; 
Tenderly — tenderly 

Bear home their dust ( 



114 THE BROKEN THOUGHT, 

Send them home tenderly ! 

Sister and sire 
Sob at the thought of them, 

By the low fire ; 
And a fond mother's heart 

Hourly hath bled ; 
Tenderly — tenderly 

Bear home her dead ! 



THE BROKEN THOUGHT. 

'Tis a shadow that stirs on the motionless wall — 
A shadow that falls with the night ; that is all : 
But it startles my soul from an exquisite dream, 
As the hunter a bird, by a wood-hidden stream : 
Though 'tis only a shadow, and voiceless to me, 
Yet the light fades away from the thought-rippled 
sea. 

'Tis an icicle dashed 'gainst the door in its fall — 
An icicle, splendid and cold ; that is all : 
But it touches the fire in a hope-glowing vein, 
And the flame smoulders back 'neath gray embers 

again ; 
I was sipping rich wine, but the icicle cold, 
Dashed with aloes the rim of my chalice of gold. 



YOU AND /, JOHJV. II5 

'Tis a cricket that hides its bright eyes in the wall — 
A cricket, with low household songs ; that is all : 
But it severs the links of the glittering chain, 
That lay clasping my heart, till forgotten its pain : 
Yet I smile at the minstrel that hides in the wall, 
Though the harp be the breath of a cricket ; 
that's all. 

'Tis a snow-bird, that flew to the cottage to call — 
A snow-bird that perched on the window; that's 

all: — 
Only perched there, and peered through the frost- 
crayoned pane. 
While I listened, to catch one low chirp, but in vain : 
Yet his flutter has startled a thought past recall, 
Though 'tis only the wing of a snow-bird ; that's all. 






YOU AND 7, JOHN'. 

Only you and I, John, of them all ; 
Only you and I, John ; though we call 
Till the old house echo o'er and o'er, 
Not a sweet voice answers as before. 

Only you and I, John, just to think 
How the chain is broken, link by link ; 
And, of all in happy days gone by, 
Only you and I, John, you and I. 



1 1 6 roc/ AND /, JOHN. 

Only you and I, John, left at last ; 
Dear old fellow, tears are raining fast ; 
Don't, John, for it breaks my heart to see 
How you sob, for you are all to me. 

All the world to me, John, stanchest friend, 
Truest lover, loving to the end ; 
You are all, John, that is left me now; 
Let me coax the old smile to your brow. 

Only we two, now, John, only we, 
Standing as a blossom-rifled tree 
On the moorland, when the winds are high ; 
Yet for us, John, wondrous fair the sky ; 

For our days were mostly summer days, 
With the noon-fires toned to softest haze ; 
Summer yet, with here and there a leaf 
Swirling past ; and here and there a grief. 

Summer yet, but with a cooler dew. 
And a sharper breeze for me and you ; 
And a tinge of autumn in the skies. 
And a loss of something in the eyes. 

Only you and I, John, though we call 
Till the old house ring from wall to wall. 
Not a footfall glides across the floor ; 
Not a sweet voice answers, as before. 



MV CIGAR. 117 



MY CIGAR, 



DEDICATED TO THE LOVERS THEREOF. 



Musing in the dusk of summer — 

Without moon or star ; 
All my soul within is lighted 

By my bright cigar. 

Bless the man that first invented 

This narcotic weed ! 
Wreathe his praise in curves of beauty, 

Joy-inspiring weed ! 

What though haters scorn to touch thee, 

Smoothly folded leaf, 
And with speech as dry and musty 

As a lawyer's brief, 

Paint the chronic aches and ailments, 

Hid in thine embrace, 
And with melancholy visage 

Untold horrors trace ! 

Yet would I — though dull existence 

Light no other ray — 
Lend me to this sweet forgetting 

At each close of day, 



Il8 IN THE LAST HOUR. 

All the ills that fate may gather 

For my luckless head ; 
All the villanies of worldlings — 

To their lucre wed : 

All the witcheries of woman ; 

All her wicked wiles, 
Stand forgotten in the blending 

Of these smoke-curled piles. 

Oh, ye gods, in your bestowing, 

Ever grant me this : 
That though yearly taxes plague me, 

And all things amiss ; 

Though the world is dark around me, 
With no brightening star, 

I may dream in summer twilights, 
O'er my prime cigar. 






IN THE LAST HOUR. 

When my soul at last shall wait 
By the slowly opening gate. 
Leading out to the unknown. 
Father, leave me not alone ; 
Take in Thine my world-loosed hand. 
Till I reach the fairer land. 



MY I? OSES. 1 19 

Oh, my Saviour, if I may 
On Thy breast my tired head lay, 
When the darkness veils the light, 
And the world recedes from sight, 
Then, indeed, that dreaded hour 
Shall have lost its threatening power. 

'Cross the tide I so much dread. 
Lay Thy dear hand on my head. 
Saviour, leave me not alone 
On the shores of the unknown ; 
Then, secure in heaven and Thee, 
Mine a blest eternity. 



MY ROSES, 

Oh, my tender, my true-hearted roses ! 

Wherever they hid the drear while, 
They are nodding at me through the casement, 

With face all a-smile : 
And my heart outward leaps with a welcome 

That deepens the exquisite glow 
Of their bonny, bright cheeks ; ah, the roses 
Left mine long ago. 

'Along the roses — blest hours bear me witness ! 

There pierces my bosom no thorn ; 
And the shadows fade out from my spirit, 
As stars fade at morn : 



I20 MV LOVER, 

And no sorrow of any June morrow, 

No triumph — whatever it be — 
May estrange, or in any way part us, 
My roses and me. 

All the night, when the star-eyes are keeping 

Fond watch of my darlings, I dream 
Of their pale, patient faces — soft-trickling 

With tears — it would seem : 
And a swift, jealous fear haunts me ever, 

That, down from some cloud — eastward whirled 
Swoop a great ghastly wind, and my roses 
Drop out of the world. 



MY LOVER, 

With the breath of a sigh 

Strode my gay lover by, — 

My gay lover, October, and saddened am I ; 

Foi his mantle, back-thrown — 
By the breezes out-blown — 
Told me more than he dare — my proud lover, my 
own. 

Though he turned with the wile 
Of a magical smile — 
What his coldness had wounded, could falsehood 
beguile .'* 



BOSTON IN FLAMES. 121 

And he laid at my feet 
Every dainty conceit 
With which lovers, grown weary, hope fondly to 
cheat ; 

And his hand poured sweet wine, 
With a flavor divine ; 
There was chill in the touch of this lover of mine. 

Oh, the rapturous days. 
When he stole through the haze 
Of the woodlands to woo me with cheek all 
a-blaze ; — 

And my red lips he pressed — 
As I leaned on his breast. 
While the sun waved adieus down the roseate west. 

But, to-night, with a sigh. 
Strode he languidly by. 
And alone at our tryst by the brook, sad am L 






BOSTON IN FLAMES. 

Is it true — as the winds go boasting — that the 

flame-winged fiend to-night. 
Has marshalled his minion forces in the moon's 

unworldly light. 



122 BOSTON IN FLAMES. 

With the hell-breath in his nostrils, that scorches the 

stifling air, 
Though the children sweetly slumber : ha ! what 
means yon lurid glare ? 

Oh, sea ! up, up to the rescue ! dash forward your 
helpful foams ! 

Up ! up to the roofs of granite ! up ! up to those 
flame-capped domes ! 

But ye lie there moaning, moaning with a weird 
complaining cry. 

And ye dare not — dare not clutch him : oh, cow- 
ard ! to see men die, 

When a sweep of your arm might save them ! How 

the timbers hiss and crack ! 
And the smoke, with its grimy fingers, is staining 

the marble black : 
If the clouds would rain their pity, or the sweet 

moon loose her mist ; 
But no ; and his wild eyes kindle with the hues of an 

amethyst, 

In the blaze of a torrid noon-day; oh, horror! 

another crash 
Of tottering, reeling rafters ; of attic, and arch, and 

sash : 
Are ye strong enough to bear it, oh, souls with your 

fine-nerved clay. 
If your soft-limbed babes are homeless on the black 

verge of a day ? 



THE WATCHER. 1 23 

If only the moon would listen ; but, cold as if carved 

of stone, 
And her hollow ear heeds never the shriekings that 

pierce our own : 
If the breezes would be kinder, and away to their 

caverns flee, 
Then death to the daring outlaw that shouts by the 

frightened sea. 



THE WATCHER. 

At morn a brown-eyed maiden 
Gazed out across the sea ; 

And so I softly questioned 
What sail for her might be 

Dipping the foam-crowned billows, 
The fetterless, the free. 

Only her brown eyes answered, 
With startled, timid speech ; 

Then turned again to watching 
Upon the barren beach : 

With joy forever nearing. 
And yet so out of reach. 

And when the noon blazed hotly, 

And leaves forgot to stir. 
The wistful watcher lingered — 



124 '^H^ WATCHER. 

A sea-god worshipper ; 
And saw white pennons tossing 
For others — not for her. 

And then, again I queried, 

" Why watch all day — all day ? 

Your sail — if it be coming — 
Is many a league away." 

Only her brown eyes answered, 
As patient brown eyes may. 

And when the day grew waning, 
A sad-faced woman rose. 

And through the dewy raining, 
Paced to and fro, as those 

Grown desperate with waiting. 
As the sweet daylight goes. 

And still she lingers, watching 
That weary stretch of foam : 

No use to mock or marvel. 
And so my lips are dumb : 

Ah me ! so many watchers 
For sails that never come. 



SONG OF LABOR, 12$ 



SOJVG OF LABOR. 

When the world from its mystic shell throbbed 
forth, 

At touch of the Master's hand, 
And man awoke as the new dawn broke. 

And gazed on the wondrous land ; — 
In the shadow of fig-tree leaves I crouched, 

And the monarch scanned me well ; 
But, scanned or scorned, was my place to be 

Where his own proud soul should dwell. 

Since then I have girdled the rolling globe, 

And burrowed its caverns deep ; 
And with ring and roar, have jarred the ore 

From its erst unbroken sleep ; 
'Tis true I grappled with flame-eyed gnomes, 

And fought with a giant's might ; 
But I dashed them back from my conquering track. 

And my strong arm won the fight. 

I have spilled the blood of the forest wood. 

And dotted the green earth o'er 
With temples and shrine, where the gifted nine 

Have murmured their mystic lore, 
And men have marvelled with mortal thrill, 

That my hands have reached so high, 
To fasten an arch, or poise a beam. 

So close to the glowing sky. 



126 SONG OF LABOR. 

With plummet and line I gauged the sea, 

And traversed its sunless sands, 
Till crimson coral, and silvery pearl 

Were clutched in my eager hands : 
And over the roof of the grim green caves — 

That the ocean hides away — 
I have threaded the foam of the mermaid's home, 

In a shallop begirt with spray. 

And the sparkling rills, that the summer hills 

Unloose in their wanton moods, 
I have gathered well, till their white waves swell 

In my restful interludes ; 
And coaxed their ripples to turn a mill, 

For sake of the unground corn 
That sprouts so green, as I tread between, 

In the dew of a May-day morn. 

Little by little, with pick and spade. 

Have I marshalled the gravel ranks. 
And heaped in piles, o'er the rock-hedged miles, 

For the desperate, daring pranks 
Of the iron steed, galloping o'er the sand 

With a shriek on the ghostly night. 
Till back to their haunts — in dire alarm — 

Each goblin, and witch, and sprite. 

I have followed the lightning's tempest track, 

And pinioned its flashing wing. 
Till it heeds my bidding, as never a serf 

The will of a haughty king ; 



DOUBTING, 127 

And, scorning the glare of the warning air, 

It startles the nerves of space, 
With chords sublime from the lyre of time, 

That I hold in my fire-embrace. 

In and out hath my shuttle glanced, 

With threads that the silk-worm spun, 
Till my lightsome loom hath caught the bloom 

That sleeps 'neath a tropic sun ; 
And the unshorn flocks 'mong the lonely rocks 

Have tossed me a web so rare. 
That a purple robe have my fingers wrought 

For a high-born queen to wear. 

Oh, the world to me bends low the knee. 

For I hold in my bounding veins 
A nobler blood than of ermined kings, — 

With their thrones, and wide domains : 
And the dolts that deem me a low-born thing — 

But fit for a tyrant's rule — 
Know little the health, and the inborn wealth 

Of souls in the toiler's school. 



M:. 



DOUBTING, 

Lost ; have you seen it ? a fugitive heart, 
Tender and warm as the white bosom o'er it 

Well might I tell how it fluttered and fell 
Into the hands that so gallantly bore it 



128 DOUBTING, 

Off and away, while I wondered all day, 

When it went from me so sweetly, completely, — 

Wondered if yet my gay lover would say 
I, as a maiden, had done indiscreetly ? 

But on the morrow my sorrow was great. 

As I stood waiting, and watching, and weeping ; 

For they had told me, but told me too late. 

Gone was my heart in most treacherous keeping. 

Gone, so they said, with a toss of the head, 
But to be trod with the dust of the city : 

How the words tortured and filled me with dread — 
Dread of the world's cold, contemptuous pity. 

Trampled, despoiled in the dust of the street, — 
Of the sweet past but a passionless token ; 

Swept by the gale as the leaves at my feet ; 
Ha ! 'tis the tempter this outrage hath spoken. 

Say, would he mock me with lovingest words — 
Stealing my heart so completely and sweetly, 

Then — lightly holding its quivering chords — 
Scornfully smile, that I did indiscreetly ? 

Nay ; I protest ; 'tis not lost, as they say ; 

For the dear hands all so tenderly bore it 
Off and away, while I wondered all day, 

If in his bosom my gay lover wore it ? 



LULINE, 129 



LULINE. 

In the bosom of a valley 

Summer-green, 
Hides a slender-fingered maiden 

Called Luline ; 
Light of foot as any fairy, 

'Neath the moon ; 
Light of heart as oriole, waking 

Slumbrous June. 

Not for her the empty homage 

Men bestow. 
Not for her the tides of fashion 

Ebb and flow ; 
But the bonny children greet her 

Every day, 
As she gathers honeysuckles — 

Fair as they. 

If you knew her — if you knew her 

My Luline, 
You would call her of all maidens 

Queenliest queen : 
Not because of diamonds flashing 

In her hair ; 
They are only morning dew-drops 

Sparkling there. 



130 THE DEAD OF AVONDALE, 

But a nobler type of beauty, 

Brooding, lies 
'Neath the softly languid lashes 

Of her eyes : 
You would know her soul not low-born 

From the first ; 
Royal natures loom so grandly, 

Valley-nursed. 

Touch her not, oh, sordid passion, 

With your breath ! 
Dash no storm of early sorrow — 

Cold as death — 
On the smooth brow of my darling — 

My Luline, 
Pure as are the valley lilies ; 

Queenliest queen. 



THE DEAD OF A VONDALE. 

Down in the darkness — 
The ghoul-peopled darkness 
That maketh us start ; — 
Down in the silence ; — 
Oh, horror ! oh, horror ! 
The fathers and brothers, 
And husbands are lying 
With ice at their heart. 



THE DEAD OF AVONDALE, ' 13I 

What hand hath stricken them 
Sharply and suddenly ? 

Hidden apart, 
'Mong the grim pillars 
That rose in the torch-light — 
Still bolder and blacker, 
Some hate-luring foe, 
Low-crouched and waiting. 
From doom-fiend or demon, 
A sign or a signal, 
Ere levelled the blow ? 

Then — ah, the peril ! 
What terrible conflict. 
With desperate muscle. 
And scared faces, lifted 
In anguish, invoking 
Some brave human helper — 
If Heaven had forgotten : 
But none stooped to lift them, 
And lave with cool water : 
And so they are lying — 
A hundred dead toilers 
Or more, heaped together ; 
Or, all alone fallen. 
Where only reign stillness, 
And strangeness below. 
Gone is the glaring — 
Of lamp-light ; and flaring 
So white on the air ; 



132 THE DEAD OF AVONDALE. 

Dead eyes are staring, 
Wide open — wide open — 

In stony despair : 
Dead hands are clutching 
At something — at nothing — 

All rigidly there. 
Fathers and children, 
With stiffened arms, clasping 
Each other, and kneeling 
With faces of pleading, 
As if still in prayer : 
While rests the death vapor, 
Damp on the forehead, 
And gore-matted hair. 

Avondale ! Avondale ! 
Oh, the mad mystery — 
Oh, the sad history — 
Locked in thy heart ! 
Down in the darkness 
That haunteth our rest, 
Death stands grim warden, 
Lest from the wild heart-break, 
A stray shriek should startle 
Some dusk-mantled guest. 
Sweet ear of Heaven ! 
Rose ever such wailing 
Of woe-stricken women, 
Of widows, and wives ? 
Is there no healing — 



THE DEAD OF AVONDALE, 1 33 

No touch of a Jesus, 

To raise and restore them — 

These ill-fated lives ? 

May not the pleading 

Of agonized mother 

Yet bring back her child ? 

Or the ^vild anguish 

Of sister for brother, 

Yet wake the cold pulses, 

A-down in the silence 

Of Avondale's cavern, 

Till dear lips are smiling 

That yesterday smiled ? 

Shall the dumb granite 

That walls the black chamber 

Where perished these martyrs, 

Not throb with a pity, 

Nor stir with a sigh. 

When, all the lone midnights. 

Pale Rachels go pacing 

The worn clay above them, 

With hands wildly wringing, 

And soul-piercing cry ? 

And little ones calling. 

With sob-broken accents — 

For something that perished, — 

For something they cherished, — 

Shut out from the sky : 

Pity them ! pity them ! 

Angel of mercy ! 



134 SOME ONE ELSE — NOT I. 

Their sires fell befriended 
By none, and untended : 
Oh, God, from their struggles 
Lift never the veil ! 

How they lay writhing, 
And praying for succor, — 
These hundred poor toilers, — 
With no hand to help them, 
A-down in the cavern 
Of sad Avondale. 






SOME ONE ELSE — NOT I. 

Over the purple brink 

Of a brook that gurgles by, 
I leaned, and what do you think 

The vision that caught her eye ? 
Only a woman's face ; 

But a face so sad to see, 
That I questioned musingly 

If it ever belonged to me. 

If it ever belonged to me ? — 
And I bent my head still lower, 

Where the mimic mirror swung 
Just under the reed-fringed shore ; 



THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 1 35 

Not the face I called my own, 

In the happy spring-time glow ; 
Oh, no ! it were never mine — 

The one in the tide below. 

It was some one else — not I — 

That knelt by the brooklet lone, 
To watch, with a stifled sigh, 

A face that was not my own : 
It was not my face at all ; 

So I waited for mine to come ; 
Entreating the years for it. 

But the guilty years were dumb. 



THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 

(DR. GEORGE PECK'S.) 

Fancy is leading'me backward, dear wife. 
Over the path of our care-shadowed life, 
Since your fair hand found its way into mine, 
Trembling with fears you might never define : 
Many and many the dark days, I know, 
Since that June morn in the blest long ago ; 
Yet by the wayside there bloomed for us flowers 
Fair as e'er brio:htened this sad world of ours. 



'fc>' 



Youth, with its pulses of joy, hath gone by, — 
Silvered the brown locks and dimmed the clear eye, 
Youth, with its transport, and passion, and pain. 
Never may gladden or sadden again : — 



136 THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 

Babes that you pressed to your fond beating breast, 
Strayed, long ago, from that shehering nest, 
And by the lone fire we sit — you and I — 
Thinking and thinking of old days gone by. 

Shall it be smiling or shall it be tears. 
Greeting this pause in the far-stretching years ? 
Tell me, dear wife, with your hand in my own, 
Would you recall the swift years that have flown? — 
Threading the valley or climbing the hill, 
Leading, or lifting our little ones still, 
Knowing, whatever of sorrow befall. 
That the Good Father cared kindly for all. 



Brave little woman, how nobly you stood 
Close to my side, through the fire, through the flood. 
Guiding the stronger and teaching the weak, 
With the soft flush of content on your cheek. 
Bearing the burden and heat of the day. 
In your own patient and womanly way, — 
Winding the threads by your hopefulness spun. 
Now in the shadow, and now in the sun. 

Ah, 'tis no wonder you sigh, gentle wife. 
Looking back over our fifty years' life ; — • 
Not for ourselves, for so blessed our lot, 
Little there seems that were better forgot ; — 
Not for our youth that went slipping away. 
Swift as a dream at the dawning of day ; — 
Youth wears a beautiful crown, it is true, 
Yet, age like ours hath its diadem, too. 



THE GOLDEN WEDDING, 1 37 

But, you remember — I know by your face — 

Others were booked for the same pleasant race, 

Laying their vows on love's holiest shrine, 

Just where we laid ours, beloved — yours and mine; 

After a little the way grew too rough, 

And the poor feet faltered, weary enough ; — 

Count the deep graves, if you can, darling wife, 

Scooped by the roadside of fifty years' life. 

Earth wears its greenness, and heaven its blue, 
Yet is the world not the same that we knew, 
When first our pilgrimage brightly begun, 
Dashed by the gold of an earlier sun ; 
Factions and fashions have vanished from sight. 
Brief as the vapor that curtains the night. 
While from their ashes new shapes daily rise. 
Hedging the pathway that leads to the skies. 

Oh, the swift tide rushing onward to-day, 
Sweeping the track of old landmarks away ! 
Oh, the wild hurry of measures and men ! — 
Is it the same world we struggled with then ? — 
Feet dull as ours may not, surely, keep pace 
With the mad devotees flushed with the chase ; — 
Hands tired as ours it were better to fold. 
Than reaching outward for something to hold. 

And, ^tis as well, for our souls long ago 

Gauged the poor value of greatness below ; — 

Saw, with a vision far clearer than now. 

How throbbed the temples, and ached the white brow. 



138 OCTOBER, 

When Fame, the fleetest of all, though so fair, 
Swung her green chaplet and fastened it there, 
Scorching the heart with her world-heated breath, 
Till every drop drank the poison of death. 

See ! down the slope lies the foot of the hill, 
Only a little way — little way still : 
God has been good to us, guiding our feet 
Softly, where cool desert springs bubble sweet ; 
Yet seems the earth-way so weary at best. 
But Heaven hath beauty and infinite rest : 
Yonder, dear wife, lies the foot of the hill, 
Only a little way — little way still. 

Friendship hath woven to-day a new chain, 
Binding our waning lives earthward again : — ■ 
If there be joy in this sin-blighted sphere, 
'Tis the warm sympathy greeting us here : — 
If there be gladness like that born above, 
'Tis the communion of those that we love, — 
And we forget all the sorrow and strife, 
In this sweet ending of fifty years' life. 

OCTOBER. 

Back to your fabled haunts, wizard new-comer ! 
Touch not a tress of our beautiful summer ! 

Trail not your gaudy robes through our fair meadows. 
Sparkling with sun-rain, or dusky with shadows. 



OCTOBER, 139 

Press not your steed, oh, magnificent rover, 
Over our wonderful pink-crested clover ! 

For there is death in your breath, false new-comer, 
Still cling our hearts to the sunny-browed summer. 

Ye are but mocking us, gorgeous pretender ! 
Grief hides her sobs 'neath your fine-flaunting 
splendor. 

Nightly we hear from the moon-lighted valley, 
Where, shy as elfins, your wild forces rally, 

Voices of infinite pathos and longing, 

As, through the wood, hapless spirits were thronging : 

Haunting the midnight with piteous pleading. 
While dream the slumbrous-eyed, dumb and unheed- 
ing. 

• • • • • 

Kneel we alone to our beautiful summer ; 

Not 'neath your banner-folds, gaudy new-comer. 

Not your rich crimson, and gold-girdled splendor, 
Softened with tears in the blue morns, and tender ; 

Nor the gay wreath on your brow that reposes. 
Ever could buy our own pure-hearted roses ; 

Pure-hearted roses, or pink-crested clover. 
Flushing with beauty our summer world over. 



140 A MAY-DAY CAROL. 



A MAY-DAY CAROL. 

We have waited thy beautiful coming, 

Oh, light-footed i\Iay, 
As a maiden the step of her lover 

At close of the day : 
At the wave of thy wand fled the breezes, 

That fret all the night 
At the stars, till they hide in the azure 

Their crystalline light. 

We have missed the clear trill of the robin 

With red tufted breast ; 
And the deft little tricks of the sparrow 

In shaping her nest, 
And the warm, winsome glow of the sunset — 

Gold-crowning the trees ; 
And the lowing of herds from the pastures, 

And humming of bees. 

And the breath from the spice-swept old woodlands. 

And meadows of green ; 
With the butter-cups' yellow effulgence, 

And daisies between : 
And the soft-bosomed roses, festooning 

The robe of each day : 
We are glad — we are glad of thy coming, 

Oh, light-footed May. 



ANNIE, THE BRIDE OF A YEAR, I41 

ANNIE, THE BRIDE OF A YEAR. 

Only a step from the altar, and the snow-pure orange- 
blossoms, 

And the lightly rippling laughter at the marriage- 
feast and merry, 

To a new mound in the church-yard, and a place at 
the fireside vacant ; 

Only a step, and Annie, my shy-eyed and blushing 
Annie, 

That slept in my arms all summer, till the pale flow- 
ers flushed with envy 

That mine of them all was fairest : Annie, my brown- 
haired darling, 

That smiled at the early snow-flakes, as if 'twere a 
flock of dovelings. 

Out in the crisp air sporting ; still watching, in rest- 
ful languor. 

With her wasted hand out-stretching, that closer my 
own might clasp her. 

Till the last white grace of winter went flooding the 
bare March meadows : 

Annie, my choice of any, and the range of a world 
before me. 

With the bridal robes about her, slid out of my sight 
one morning. 

To a couch on the lonely hillside, w^ith a willow 
drooping o'er it ; 

And my heart — my heart is breaking for the bride 
of a year, sweet Annie. 



142 MV SHIP. 



MY SHIP. 



It will come ; I have said it a thousand times, 

And may say it a thousand more, 
Ere the white sails gleam on the sunset main, 

And my ship on the waiting shore : 
It was launched, I know, long, long ago, 
For the siren Hope hath told me so. 

Oh, yes ! 'twill come ; for an idle gale — 

With never a thing to do, 
But croon low songs in a careless way — 

The sweetest I ever knew ; 
Just floated by, with a voiceful sigh, 
"Your ship will be coming by and by : 

" For down 'mong the warm bright groves of palm 

That droops on a tropic isle. 
As I rocked myself on a slender bough. 

But to rest my wdngs awhile, 
I saw at play, with the frolicsome spray, 
Your ship, on its wanton, winding way." 

'^Twas a fairy craft on a fairy sea, 

With its light keel shod with gold ; 
And a crew as merrv as elves could be, 

As they counted their gifts untold ; 
They had rifled the land, and the moon-white sand, 
And gathered these for your waiting hand." 



GOOD-BYE. 143 

It will come at last ; oh, you need not smile, 

There are others, as fair as mine, 
That dally down by the gorgeous isle, 

Where the tropical waters shine : 
It will tire some day of its aimless play, 
And haste to its port, away — away. 

And then, aye, then, I would scatter joy 

As a husbandman his seed ; 
And never a grief should roam the earth, 

Or never a child of need : 
From my ample store would I dash the shore, 
With brightness our sad world never wore. 

And for you, sweet love, with the tender eyes, 

And grace of a wild gazelle, 
My heart would a myriad dainty things 

That I dare not — dare not tell : 
It were well worth while — oh, you need not smile — 
To wait for my ship from the magic isle* 



GOOD-BYE. 

Speak it not lightly, you that part 
But for a day, oh friend, oh lover ; 

You do not know the covert blow 
That near may hover, 



144 GOOD-BYE. 

To mar the intercourse of years, 
That seemed but time alone could sever : 

Breathe it not idly, lest it be 
Indeed, forever. 

Not lightly speak it : there are lives 
That pine to-day with bitter grieving, 

Because of careless, cold farewells, 
Past all retrieving : 

Murmured with foot upon the stair. 

And light winds through the lattice blow- 
ing, 

So long ago, when down the air 
The sun was glowing. 

Speak it not lightly 'neath the stars, 
Thinking to meet again to-morrow ; 

A hundred arms may hold you back — 
Despite your sorrow ; 

And still a cruel hundred more 

Reach 'cross the path of your endeavor. 

Your lips must wait a far-off time — 
Perhaps forever. 

Speak it not lightly in the morn, 
For, ere the mournful day be dying, 

The heart you grieved so may have ceased 
Its tender sighing : 



THE CHRISTMAS SHADOW, 1 45 

And all of life, and love, and hope, 

Go out while yet your tones are ringing ; 

And, to your soul forever more 
A tear be clinging. 

Through the strange phases of our lives. 
While haunting memory lives or lingers, 

Must thrill along our veins, the clasp 
Of loving fingers. 

We may forget the petty snares. 

That leave each day so bare and broken ; 
But not the last, last sad good-bye. 

Too lightly spoken. 

Then breathe it warmly while you may ; 

Palm pressed to palm, and eyes love-burning; 
For who goes down 'mong life's false shoals 

Comes not, returning. 






THE CRRISTMAS SHADOW. 

Lightly the eve through dusky bars, 
Shook its weird splendors at our feet, 

As waltzed the lone, unmated stars. 
That the fair moon uprose to greet; 

And, where a bough of holly hung 
Were Christmas carols gayly sung : 



146 THE CHRISTMAS SHADOW, 

And many a weary, saddened heart, 

Laid down its burdens and rejoiced ; 
While revellers played their joyous part, 

So light of foot, and merry- voiced ; 
But, as I watched the festive scene, 

A shadow crept, and crouched between : 
A strange new-comer at my side, 

With face so startled and so wild, 
So hollow and so hungry-eyed, 

I knew it was a starving child : 
No cry, or moan that I could hear. 
Nor low complaining reached my ear : 
But read I in her mute despair 

That, 'neath the fire-eyes of the sun, 
There throbbed no pitying heart to care 

For the neglected little one. 
Cowering, wdth well nigh deathly fear 
Beneath the lighted chandelier. 
No dainty gift for her was meant, 

Though over-full the glittering tree ; 
With h7^ead she would have been content, 

So famished, and so cold w^as she. 
No childish eagerness up-sprung 
In her blue eyes, so sad and young : 
She only swept her matted hair — 

With one small hand — back from her brow ; 
The brow that might have been so fair ; — 

Ah, might have been, but was not now, 
And gazed with strange bewildered air, 
The only shadow outlined there. 



A WOMAN'S REASON, 1 47 

Oh, long shall linger at my side, 
Unkempt, uncared, and hungry-eyed, 
When midnight moaneth lone and wild. 

Or when the sweet stars hover near : 
That hungry, homeless, unowned child. 

Crouched 'mid the pomp of Christmas cheer, 

Beneath the lighted chandelier. 



A WOMAN'S REASON. 

I MIGHT have told you long ago. 

Why I was cold as frozen snow 

When you were near : you might have guessed 

Had you of woman's ways possessed 

A tithe of intuition — you. 

Knowing so much we never know ; — 

Knowing so much, yet now to be 

Foiled by this foolish mystery. 

I might have told you long ago, 
If you had cared the cause to know ; 
And yet — whatever it be, depend 
You cannot — cannot comprehend: 
For none of your aspiring race 
Have yet been wise enough to trace 
The whys and wherefores of a sex 
Born but to puzzle and perplex. 



148 CAGED, 

You say that once I loved you ; true : 
And, knowing that, if but you knew, - 
Oh rock of peril ! oh deep snare ! 
The risk of all risks that you.dare 
In loving back, — or showing it. 
Without that modicum of wit, 
That passion needs to hold in poise 
Its mad and most disjointed joys. 

If you would hold a woman's heart. 
Be not too fond : nor stand apart, 
And, as a wanton sea-breeze sigh 
With jealous blazes in your eye, — 
Because, forsooth, another comes 
To gather up a few poor crumbs 
Of harmless smiles ; for 'tis too true, 
That she will hate you, if you do. 



CAGED, 

Chirp ! chirp ! chirp ! 

Sweet linnet, how came you there ? 
And why do you flutter and beat your wings 

And strive for the free blue air ? 
I know — I know, there's a cunning nest 

Tucked close in a blossoming thorn, 
Where a lonely mate must wait, and wait, 

Through many a weary morn. 



CAGED, 149 

Chirp ! chirp ! chirp ! 

What do your captors mean, 
By barring you fast in a hated cage, 

Away from the meadows green ? 
They would have you sing, poor stricken thing : 

Will their dull souls never know 
That a homesick bird with a fettered wing, * 

Is the saddest sight below ? 

Chirp ! chirp ! chirp ! 

In time it will all be o'er ; 
Some morn they will start, with a pang at heart. 

And open that cruel door, 
And lift you up with a tender care. 

And wish, with a pitying sigh — 
They had left you free in the wild-wood tree. 

In the glow of the wide-arched sky. 

Chirp ! chirp ! chirp ! 

Oh, linnet with panting breast, 
Not alone you cry for the free, far sky, 

And the warmth of a loving nest : 
In sight of your gilded roof, lone bird. 

That shuts you from heaven's blue. 
Are captives pining, unseen, unheard, 

As helpless and sad as you. 

They were born for singers, a glorious birth, 

And a heritage of good : 
But their white robes trail in the dust of earth, 

And their shackles drip with blood : 



I50 IF EVER YOU NEED ME. 

They were born for singers, but trill no song, 
And there's only a hush instead ; 

For the soul sits dumb in her dungeon gloom, 
As if one were lying dead. 

Flutter and beat your restless wings, 

Oh soul at your prison bars ; 
Though you reach not here to higher things, 

They await you beyond the stars : 
Some day will a hand unloose the door, 

Where you droop with a patient pain, 
And you never need beat your poor wings more 

Or languish in gloom again. 



IF EVER YOU NEED ME. 

If ever you need me, darling — 

If ever your heart is sore 
From the shafts the world flings at you. 

And you turn to me once more ; — 
You have only to softly whisper 

My name, as the breeze drones by. 
And I — as a home-bound exile — 

To your warm white arms will fly. 

It is something sweet to think of — 
Whatever the future brings — 

That my poor life held a treasure, 

More valued than common things ; — 



IF EVER YOU NEED ME. 151 

For you let me love you, darling, 
Though now is your heart as stone : 

But I only will remember 

The days you were all my own. 

Some time in the grand years coming 

There yet may a thought of me 
Sweep over your lonely being, 

As billows a broken sea : 
And you may, perchance, remember 

With a flush of pain, the scorn 
In your proud face, when you left me 

Alone in a sunless morn. 

We grew as the leaves of summer, 

Together in thought and heart ; 
And we dreamed not of this drifting 

From the one green tree apart : 
But the wind with a poison in it, 

Blew out of a cloud one night. 
And left on your pearl-white spirit, 

The stain of a baneful blight. 

You have chosen your way and left me ; 

I will follow not, but wait, 
With a love that is simply loyal. 

And true as the vows of fate : 
You have chosen ; I would not hinder ; 

But my heart would breathe you this ; — 
If ever my deep devotion 

You out of your full life miss ; — 



152 SOME WHERE, 

If ever you feel a longing 

For the dear old place of rest, 
With my tender arms about you, 

And your tired head on my breast ; 
And the days are lone without me — 

As once in the eves gone by. 
You have only my name to whisper, 

And I to your side wdll fly. 



SOME WHERE. 

Our reaching hands may never clasp 

The jewels that so near us shine ; 
Our longing souls may never sip 

From life's full cup the joy-pressed wine. 
But somewhere on a lovelier shore 

Unfettered by the ills of this 
Our famished lives perhaps may find 

The banquet that to-day we miss. 

Somewhere beyond — somewhere beyond. 

We know not where its boundaries be. 
We only know our unveiled eyes 

Somewhere beyond shall plainer see. 
How small the cares with which our souls 

Grew fettered as the days went by, 
How small the griefs that stung us so — 

Somewhere beyond we shall know why. 



SOUTH WINDS. 153 



SOUTH WTNDS. 

'Tis a sorrowful tale ye breathe, south winds, 

A sorrowful tale to me, 
Up from the plains where the blossoms swing 

On the fair pomegranate tree ; 
And the luscious palms on the white sand lie, 

In the sunshine by the sea. 

Ye tell of a beautiful land, south winds ; — 

Of a land we see in dreams, 
When the night hangs over us, and the heart 

Of the world throbs not, it seems ; 
But your voice hath a hint of grief, south winds, 

From the land we see in dreams. 

Hum me a lighter song, south winds. 

Hum me a lighter song. 
And hint no more from your peerless shore. 

The woes that to ours belong ; 
That weary and wring my very soul — 

Oh, hum me a lighter song ! 

Tell me, do lovers sigh, south winds. 

Do lovers forever sigh. 
In the wondrous realm we see in dreams. 

To the star that burns on high. 
And something whisper you dare not hint 

As your light wings rustle by? 



154 ^ZP^ CHERRIES, 

Tell me, do maidens pine, south winds, 
Do beautiful maidens pine, 

In the lonely groves where the myrtles bow 
At the feet of the haughty vine, 

And hide their blushes lest curious nymphs, 
At a glance, their love divine ? 

Hum me another song, south winds ! 

Are the roses alvv^ays fair, 
With never a thorn to pierce the breast 

In that radiant land, and rare ; 
And the nightingale sing her fond heart out 

To the moon, in her lone despair ? 

On my waiting cheek again, south winds, 
With your warm caresses, lie. 

And murmur a song of your tropic home, 
Where the roses never die : 

For the loneliest thing on this loveless orb. 
On this wild, wild shore, am I. 



RIPE CHERRIES. 

Laughing maidens, one — two — three. 
Grouped beneath a cherry tree : 
Red, red lips, and arms all bare : 
Cherries dangling in the air r 



RIPE CHERRIES. 155 

I, with foot well-poised above, 
Strive to think which best I love ; 
If the nectar I would sip 
From a cherry, or a lip ? 

Luscious tempters ; cherries red, 
Blushing crimson overhead : 
Laughing maidens grouped below : 
Which to choose I scarcely know : 
Now I hold a fresh-plucked stem 
But I pause and look at them ; 
Cherries ripe, I love you well. 
But the red lips — dare I tell ? 

White hands catch the fruit I throw ; 
Fair cheeks dimple — all aglow. 
Pouted lips and rows of pearls : 
Ah, the mischief of these girls ! 
Would I were a cherry bright. 
Then those lips would press me tight : 
Would I were a breath of air, 
I would float and rest me there. 



156 BRET HARTE, 



BRET HARTE. 

This rare rhymer of rhyme — 

This rich-worded Bret Harte : 
Of what country, or clime, 

Is he parcel, or part ; 
Hailed the bard from our own, or some province 

Not mapped on our orb's common chart ? 

Has the sun missed a ray 

From his circle of light ? 
Or a star hid away 

From its lover, the night ? 
Loomed he up from the caves of the sea-kings — 

Or loosed from a cloud's dizzy height ? 

Oh ye poets, look well 

To the laurels ye wear ! 
For no seer may foretell 

All this rival may dare ; — 
Sweeping on with the whir of a rocket, 

When midnight hath silenced the air. 

In some forest-rocked nest, 

By the dew-showers wet, 
With a song in his breast, 

This oracular Bret 
Must have burst from his shell as a sparrow. 

To warble the wildest things yet. 



BRET HARTE, 1 57 

Where the sun makes his bed, 

In a kingdom of gold, 
With the sea round him spread, 

And the sky to infold, 
And the wonderful waves dash forever 

The upland, so rocky and bold : 

And lies down to his nap, 

In his own stately way : 
This astonishing chap — 

As a fish from the spray — 
Was caught up by a line of the muses, 

And swings there, resplendent, to-day. 

And the earth, and the air 

Teem with curious eyes : 
While the world — all a-stare — 

Fain would capture the prize : 
But those love-glancing anglers will hold him, 

Until grown too heavy in size. 

If he dangle or drop. 

We may not tell at all : 
Would Ah-Sin prove a prop. 

Should the east send a squall ? 
Would Ah-Sin, the maligned wretch, dissever 

One cue, but to soften his fall ? 

If the world yet go mad 
O'er a poet's rare art 
Weaving gay things — and sad — 



J 58 SONG. 

It will be o'er Bret Harte ; — 
The rich-voiced, irresistible rhymer ; 
The gentle and graceful Bret Harte, 

If the world yet go down 

On its rapturous knee, 
To a bard of renown, 

To Bret Harte it will be : 
To Bret Harte, the droll dreamer of fancies, 

That sang of the Heathen Chinee. 



SONG. 

WouLDST know how often I think of thee ? 
Go, count the sands of yon tossing sea ! 

Or the waves that roar by the patient shore, 
And let the number my answer be. 

And yet how often I breathe thy name ? 
Then tell the rays of each starry flame, 

And count them o'er and a sky-full more, 
And still the answer would be the same. 

Or yet of the beautiful dreams I dream. 
Where thou dost float as a radiant gleam ! 

But tell the blades of the summer glades, 
And yet, believe me, that less they seem. 



A STORY OF COLOR, 1 59 



A STORY OF COLOR. 

Madam Brown went down town, 'twas her custom 

each day 
To drop in on her very dear friend, neighbor Gray, 
That lived three squares away, in a shady old street. 
Where the sunbeams embraced when they happened 

to meet. 
Like the pair above mentioned, that kissed every day, 
In a sort of mechanical, hap-hazard way; 
Meaning nothing particular, though to be sure, 
It might mean that the friendship between them was 

pure. 
And would ever, forever, and always endure ; 
And not likely to change, though the heavens col- 
lapse. 
Or the planet we live on burn up ; or, perhaps, 
We should take it as nothing whatever amiss, 
To be told there is unalloyed love in a kiss, 
Such as ladies bestow 
By the dozen, or so. 
Every day of their lives on each other, you know. 

Madam Brown went down town on the morning in 

question, 
With a speed that the doctors say hinders digestion ; 
For she had on her mind something special to say 
To her very particular friend, neighbor Gray : 
She despised "" telling things " in a general way, 



l6o A STORY OF COLOR. 

But her good neighbor Gray was so close-mouthed, 

and careful, 
In fact she belonged to the church, and was prayerful 
In season and out, and one never need fear 
For a secret intrusted her grace-renewed ear : 

And this morn found her sitting — 

Meditatively knitting : 

Not dreaming at all, 

What tempestuous squall 
Should capsize her serenity ere the night-fall ; 
For, half dead — as she said — and her breath 

nearly gone — 
Madam Brown waddled in, with her best bonnet on. 
In her eager excitement upsetting the cat, 
With her green eyes a-snooze on the wool- woven mat, 
And at length, safely moored in an elderly chair, 
Whose stout arms even yet, with a lover-like air. 
Caressed warmly each womanly form resting there ; 
Waxed her spirit serener, and, sighing a spell, 
And unearthing a neat-folded handkerchief ; well. 
There was no use in dodging, she might as well tell ; 
For no wink had she slept all the whole blessed night, 
Just a-thinking the words of dear Dorothy White, 
She that married Jun White two years come next 

July, 
And moved West, where the pork grows too big for 

the sty. 
The best fed, and the friskiest under the sky: 
And the stalks in the corn-fields grow thirteen feet 
high: 



A STORY OF COLOR, l6l 

But came back to the village-home where she was 

born, 
And lit down in its midst, one wet, blue Monday 

morn, 
And of all mornings yet, there is none to compare 
With this one of small tempers and tubs everywhere. 

But again to my story from Dorothy White, 
She called in for a sociable confab last night ; 
Just a nice little chat 
About this thing and that — 
Odds and ends between friends that come in all so 

pat; 
For dear Dorothy never to scandal gives ear ; 
You might know her a year, 
And vet never once hear 
The low gossip that some folks delight in, oh dear ! 
But she dropped in to say she had seen cousin 

Green — 
Who lives down on the meadow-road, half way be- 
tween 
The old mill and the river-bridge, near the spot where 
Young Jim Briggs drowned himself in a fit of des- 
pair ; 

All because Susie Clare, 
With her witching black hair, 
Simpered " no," when he asked for her pretty, plump 

hand, 
And her soul and her wardrobe henceforth to com- 
mand. 



1 62 A STORY OF COLOR. 

Now this same cousin Green is a model of truth, 
Being trained strictly orthodox up from her youth ; 
And would not for the world lisp a word, or repeat 
What might injure a brother, or seem like deceit ; 
But she heard that good Deacon Black's daughter 

had said, 
With a tip of the nose, and a toss of the head, 
She was told the new minister's frivolous wife, 
Had no higher ideas than a kitten, of life ; 
Reading all sorts of trash, and knew more about 

books. 
Than a woman need know that makes dresses, and 

cooks ; — 
Or is surely supposed or expected to do. 
By the church-going sinners that nod in the pew ; 
Caring little enough for a wife's parish duty, 
But mightily stuck-up and vain of her beauty : 
And, sure as you live — neighbor Gray came near 

fainting — 
This rosy-cheeked matron is given to painting, 
Down went the gray knitting, up went the gray eyes — 
Grown still grayer with horror, and speechless sur- 
prise ; 
And her soul stirred within her to see her poor 

pastor ; 
And thump went her heart, ever faster, and faster ; 
To know this disgrace to the cause of the Master, 
And tramp went her feet 
Down the dingy old street, 
Until who but the poor pastor's self should she meet. 



OUR FALLEN, 1 63 

And his white face grew crimson, then full of strange 

lights, 
At the tale handed down through the Grays and the 

Whites, 
And the rest of the sisters that slept not o' nights : 
" Oh I see. Madam G., a mistake somew^here lies ; 
My wife certainly paints " — here again the gray eyes 

Fairly glared with surprise : 
** But her cheeks," and the minister chuckled out- 
right — 
Could a man made of clay have resisted it quite ? — 
" Her cheeks, dear madam Gray, wear a rosier light 
Than French daubs ever left on a woman's sweet 

face, 
Or that pencil or brush of an artist could trace ; 
My wife certainly paints, but the roses that fall 
From her delicate fingers, hang on the white wall 
Of our sunshiny home, fairest picture of all." 



OUR FALLEN, 

[dedicated to the g. a. r.] 

Bring rare blossoms from mountain and meadow, 

In cluster and spray ! 
Let us w^eave them in garlands of beauty 

Befitting the day ; 
For the graves of our fallen are waiting 

The crowning of May. 



164 OUR FALLEN. 

Shall the pale wild rose lean 'gainst the beech- 
bole 

Her languishing head ? 
Or the lily frond drowse where the mosses 

A pillow have spread, 
With our land all astir, pleading tribute 

For sake of its dead ? 

What though kingdoms and monarchies crumble, 

And thrones reel to earth ; 
And the slopes of the east chafe in bondage 

Or vibrate wdth mirth ; 
Unforgotten the era that pledged them 

A patriot's birth. 

There was place for these chivalric brothers 

As fast as they came : 
There were gaps in the bullet-stung columns 

Regardless of name ; 
Ah, the day of their fall closed in sorrow, 

But never in shame. 

When their death-throes grew stilled, and grim 
silence 

Held captive the plain 
Where the white tents had gleamed in the moon- 
rise 

When night loosed her train, 
We upbuilded an altar, and called it 
The shrine of the slain. 



OCTOBER RAIN. l6S 

And we vowed, with the grand faith of freemen 

Who scorn to be slaves, 
That no hot breath of treason should wither 

The grass on their graves ; 
Or no foot, save the loyal and loving, 

Stand guard o'er our braves. 

Who shall pluck from our valiant-winged eagle 

One feather ? we said ; 
Or what hand wrench a stone from the bulwarks 

That shelter our dead ? 
Blaze, proud stars, in yon proudest of banners, 

Our triumph instead ! 

See ! the graves of our fallen are waiting 

The crowning of May ; 
Bring us rose-buds, with dark shining myrtle 

And wood blooms, to lay 
On the shrine to their memory sacred, 

This consecrate day. 



OCTOBER RAIN. 

Do you know, love, do you know, 

That the air is all aglow 
With a bright, bright rain — oh, a wondrous rain, 
That caught from the sun a dazzling stain. 

In its elfish, earthward flow ? 



1 66 OCTOBER RAIN, 

How the gay floods slip and slide 

Down the clear, October tide ; 
And the hollows fill, and the brook lies still, 
'Neath the yellow rain that the forests spill, 

In a torrent weird and wild, 

Do you see, love, do you see, 
How the gold spray mantles me — 

How it decks my hair, and the robes I wear ? 

Oh, a shower of pearls were not more fair 
In the vale of Araby. 

In the rustling, restful rain. 

What quiet of heart and brain, 
With the sweet, hushed air, and the sky so 

fair, 
And never a light cloud anywhere 

To hint of the radiant rain. 

And I cry to the shapes that haunt, 
And the ills that rasp, "Avaunt! 
I will hide me here with my favorites near. 
With none of your meddling hordes to fear ; 
From my blest retreat avaunt ! " 

When the thrush — with folded wings — 

In the misty hazel swings. 
In the still star light I can hear all night 
The patter of leaf-rain, low and light, 

And a throb of pain it brings ; 



OUTWARD BOUND. 1 6/ 

For the summer wines ooze out 

In the sad rain tossed about ; 
And we know, we know, when the late winds blow, 
Some germ of a happy spring laid low — 

Some hope with the life crushed out. 



OUTWARD BOUND, 

Loop back your curtains, loving night, 
And hide in mist, oh beauteous star ! 
And pour wdde floods of amber light, 

While swing the gates of morn ajar! 

The bees are humming in the clover, 

And they are coming — maid and lover, 

Side by side, 

Towards the tide, 

Where only hope-birds hang, and hover. 

Whisper your love-vows each to each. 

Soft-bosomed violet and rose ; 
Warble, shy wild-bird on the beech ; 

For her who comes, and her who goes : 
The boat is rocking on the river : 
The sunbeams mocking — all a-quiver: — 
Passion-eyed 
On the tide. 
Where sails that launch come back, ah never ! 



l68 IF ONLY. 

Fair maiden with the radiant face, 

Linger with your white hand in his 
And teach your light foot slower pace, 
For 'mong them all, no day like this. 
Though bees go humming through the clover, 
And keep they coming — maid and lover, 
Side by side 
To the tide 
Where only hope-birds hang and hover. 

Stern bridegroom, waiting on the shore, 

Watching the beacon-gleams afar, 
Haste not to grasp yon trembling oar. 

To guide your barque 'neath sun or star : 
Though lights are flashing down the river. 
And gay sails dashing on forever, 
They that ride 
On the tide, 
With their rich soul-freight, come back never* 



IF ONLY, 

If only I were a drop of dew. 

Shut in the beautiful skies, up there. 
Oh, no matter how brightly blue, 
I would wander down to the earth and you. 
And gem the coils of your lustrous hair. 



THE OLD YEAR. 1 69 

If only I were a zephyr light, 

To steal from the bowers of the fragrant south, 
I would bring the balm of a tropic night, 
And daintily sprinkle your cheek of white. 

And load with kisses your crimson mouth. 

If only I were a favorite rose, 

How would I plead with my dewy eyes. 
To be fondly pressed 'mong the drifting snows 
That melt in your bosom's warm repose. 
To listen the breath of your lightest sighs. 

If only I were a tuneful bird. 

Ravishing hearts with my idle song : 
The sweetest carols that ever stirred 
The soul, from the throat of soft-eyed bird. 
Should be piped for you, and to you belong. 

If only I were a sunbeam rare. 

To wander the fair earth as I might. 
The wave, and the wood, and the throbbing air, 
I would linger still in your lustrous hair, 
And lave your brow with resplendent light. 



THE OLD YEAR. 

Oh, many a coming morn shall rise 
O'er eastern hill-tops, gray with mist. 

And many a weary day shall sleep, 
By night-lips fondly kissed : 



I70 THE OLD YEAR, 

But thou, old year, shalt shine no more, 
To light me o'er the shadowy shore : 
A new dawn waves its locks of gold ; — 
But give me back the old. 

From many a spell of hallowed dreams, 
My soul shall waken, with a start, 
To clasp the restless-footed hours, 

Ere we forever part : 
But I shall search the w^orld, and find 
Only a memory left behind ; 
Another cometh in thy stead. 

But cling I to the dead. 

When thou wert in thy prime, old year, — 

And at thy breath shook bud and bough, 
Thy night-gemmed fingers tossed a rose, 

It lies before me now : 
And, though a thousand blossoms fall 
Where eager hands may gather all, 
No single thing that buds, and blows, 
Like this poor, faded rose. 

I love him not — this new-crowned king ; 

'Mong all the gay throngs fluttering by 
To pay their homage at his court. 

None quite so loth as I ; 
I know the youth has won them all. 
From wayside cot to palace hall ; 
And yet, old friend, I only crave 
To linger at thy grave. 



UNDER THE SYCAMORE. 171 



UNDER THE SYCAMORE. 

He will not waken ; 

The gale has shaken 
The leaves from the stalk of the white rose-tree ; 

And sharp and shrill 

Rings the wood bird's trill ; 
Yet he will not waken and speak to me. 

To all my pleading, 

He lies unheeding, 
Who never was deaf to my call before ; 

I listen and wait 

Till the hour grows late ! 
No ; only a sigh in the sycamore. 

I call him — call him : 

O clods that wall him 
From my warm arms, will ye tell him so ? 

The grass is wet 

With my tears — and yet 
He will not answer ; he cannot know. 

To all my pleading 

He lies unheeding, 
Who never was deaf to my call before. 

He will not awake. 

And my heart must break 
Under the pitying sycamore. 



172 ENTREATY. 



ENTREATY. 

Sing for me, song-throated robin, oh sing for me ! 
Trill your wild madrigals over and over, 
Heralding butter-cups — hinting of clover, 

And the aroma of summer's warm breath : 

Free to fly thither, yet fold your brown wings for me ! 
Hasten to sing for me ! vouchsafe some token, 
That the sad silences sweetly are broken. 

From their late seeming and semblance of death. 

Sing for me, warbler : the linden-bough shivers so : 
Is it the bird-heart within you, repeating 
Swiftly its tell-tale and tremulous beating. 

Till a strong pulse stirs the spring's virgin breast, 

And as the linden your brown plumage quivers so ? 
Teach me the strains, that in tropical bowers, 
Float all the year, while the dew sifts its showers, 

And the long twilights dim slowly the west. 

Sing for me, beautiful ! see the white clouds, drifting 
Loose from their ice-moorings, see the sun waking 
From his chill slumbers, as roused sea-god, shaking 

Proudly his amber locks, while through the mist. 

Rosy and shy, peers the child of the dawn, lifting 
Pearls of the clearest and purest of lustres — 
Pendent alone, or, in crystalline clusters. 

That all the night-tide the moon-lips have kissed. 



THE UNKNOWN. 1 73 

Nay ; do not flutter so ! fold your brown wing for me ! 

Though others leave me to silence and sorrow, 

Stay you and tell of the roses to-morrow. 
Though, all unshapen, the green buds to-day : 
Swing on the linden-top, red-breast, and sing for me ! 

Sing with no fear of a treacherous fetter ; 

Stay with the freedom to go ; that were better ; 

Sing not as captives, but blither than they. 






THE UNKNOWN. 

They found him down among the slain, 
One day when all the land was mourning 

For those that gave 

Their lives to save 
The old flag from a recreant scorning. 

He perished on a summer morn, 
With dew upon the wild thyme lying ; 

While through the mist 

The sunbeams kissed 
The white lips of the dead and dying. 

Around him, on the shell-ploughed turf. 
Lay mangled steed and fallen rider — - 
Whose struggling hands 
Had clutched the sands, 
And sad eyes staring wide and wider. 



1/4 THE UNKNOWN. 

None of his comrades heard the prayer — 
The wild prayer that he kept repeating ; 

Nor when he fell 

No one could tell ; 
Nor when his young heart ceased its beating. 

But when the frenzy of the hour 
Had burned itself to harmless ashes, 

They lifted him, 

And saw how dim 
The eyeball 'neath the heavy lashes. 

No hand of all that cared for him 

To smooth his damp, dishevelled tresses : 

Or lave his brow — 

So voiceful now 
With all a soldier's death expresses. 

And strangers bore him from the field -^ 
The field with cruel carnage gory, 

With careless sigh 

That such should die, 
And only they to tell the story. 

And scooped, with hurried spade, a grave, 
For the dead child of some fond mother, 

Whose only joy 

Was in her boy, 
For held her home or heart no other. 



SNOW-BIRDS. 175 

Where lies his dust, oh fleet-winged birds, 
That lightly to and fro are springing, 

Linger around 

The nameless mound, 
And flood the air with songful ringing! 

And if ye find the spot to-day, 

Maidens, with flowers in May-time blowing, 

Lay o'er his rest 

The loveliest, 
For her who mourns, his fate unknowing ! 






SNO W-BIRDS. 

Hither, my brown-winged darlings. 
And peck at the crumbs you see ; 

For a winter friend is rare to find, 
And to keep, — 'twixt you and me. 

Brave-hearted voyagers ; braver 

A hundred times than I ; 
Come perch on the sheltered window-ledge, 

And wait till the storm sweeps by. 

Oh brownies so shy and timid. 
Why cling to the ice-hung wall ? 

For the friends are few that will offer you 
A crumb, when the wild snows fall. 



176 SNOW-BIRDS. 

When the last year's roses lifted 
Their cheeks for the sun to kiss, 

There were birds that trilled till my heart forgot 
There were dreary days like this : 

Friends that came with the blossoms, 
And sipped of the fragrant dew ; 

But flitted off with the summer things, 
And there's never one left but you. 

Let us be friends together, 

Birdies, just you and I : 
What if the world to its core be false ? 

It never is worth a sigh : 

With its high and mighty scornings, 

And its shallow pretences all : 
For winter friends are as rare to find, 

As stars, in the sea, that fall. 

Rest on the sheltered casement, 

And wait till the sky is clear : 
For my heart has many a thing to tell, 

That only a bird may hear. 

Many a sad, sad story, 

And many a tale of wrong, 
That rollicking birds like you ne'er dream, 

In your careless world of song. 



OVER THE SEA, 1 77 



OVER THE SEA, 

What has become of him ? over the sea, 
Many a summer ago tossed he, 
Waving and kissing his hand to me. 

I, on the shore, stood sobbing low ; 
Would he forget me ? no, oh no : 
Said not his handsome red lips so ? 

AH my joy went over the sea, 
When, on that golden morn, went he. 
Jauntily kissing his hand to me. 

I was a maiden poor and shy, 

But nothing beneath the summer sky 

Was as beautiful, half, - — he said — as I. 

And I, with my dower of charms, should be 
His bride, when he came back over the sea - 
The sea with its great waves frightening me. 

What has become of him ? can it be 
That never he dreams of me over the sea ? 
Murmur it not, sad wave, to me ! 

Whisper it never, ye breezes low ! 
Could he forget me ? no, oh no : 
Said not his handsome red lips so ? 



178 CHRISTMAS MORN, 

So I will wait by the troubled sea, 
Where, on a summer morn, tossed he, 
Waving and kissing his hand to me. 



mi. 



CHRISTMAS MORN. 

From your slumbers, dull world ! hear the bells' 
merry clangor ! 
Up, up from your pillow ! again breaks the morn. 
That out-burst, long ago, from the east, glory-lighted, 
Where, low in a manger, the Christ-child was born : 
Rend the shackles that bind you ! The haze, just 

o'er-lapping 
Yon far stretch of forests, drifts slowly away ; 
While the sun climbs the cloudland, and leans 
grandly over. 
To fling benedictions of joy o'er the day. 

Keep no longer your silence, oh ! echoless valleys — 

Low-lying, and lonely, where summer hath been. 
But where summer not now dares a foot 'mid the 
whiteness — 

But give back responses, again and again. 
To the silver-voiced bells ringing out the sweet story 

So old, yet so new, of the Bethlehem-born, 
That the children arouse from their dreams on the 
hill-side. 

And clap their young hands at the heralded morn. 



CHRISTMAS MORN. 1 79 

Yet again, iron tongue, still repeat — still repeat it! 

The mourner that waits by the hearthstone alone, 
With a heart full of sobs, may turn slowly to listen, 

A something that memory claims as her own : 
Though her cheek wear no smile, and her lips bear 
a sorrow 

No words e'er embodied, the accents that fall — 
As the rain on the thirsty, or light on the darkness — 

The fragrance and bloom of the past may recall. 

There were tears for the others ; be this day full- 
cadenced 
With light-ringing laughter and mirth, round the 
board 
Where the viands are spread, and the little ones 
gather. 
And note with swift glances each wit-sparkling 
word : 
Hang the holly-boughs high ; toss the babes of your 
bosom 
Till touch the green pendants each innocent brow ; 
Light the tapers at night-fall, till all glow re- 
splendent, 
Whatever the old, let the new triumph now. 

To your caves, haunting cares ! ye that steal to the 
banquet. 

And poison the wine ere it presses our lips ; 
Let each cup rather brim with the peace of the sinless, 

And joy stand unveiled as the nectar she sips : 



l80 HEDGED ABOUT. 

'Cross the threshold of home no detraction, no dis- 
cord, 
To jar the pure anthem that echoes to-day 
From the hills of Judea, where wandered the shep- 
herds, 
Star-guided to find where the blest Infant lay. 



??T^ 



HEDGED ABOUT. 



Across the house-tops — far away — 
I see the glancing sunbeams lie. 

As captives watch the children play, 
Free as the winds that rustle by ; 

While they behind the bars must wait 

For some kind-coming voice of fate. 

The blue hills stretch their arms to me, 
And plead with most beseeching eyes ; 

I only stand apart, and see 

How far those hills beyond me rise : 

Poor groveller, with no helpful wings ; 

Still held below 'mong common things. 

I am not all content to gaze 

Across the roofs — however fair — 

That hedge me from the forest ways ; 
My soul would breathe the same free air 



HEDGED ABOUT. l8l 

That feeds the veins of yonder trees, 
Unclogged by vapors, such as these. 

Nor am I strong enough of heart, 

To brave the scorn, and haughty sneer, 

That bid me shrink, and hide apart 

From haunts that worldlings hold so dear : 

Better would suit, to-day, my mood, 

Those lonely children of the wood. 

They would not chide me, though I fail 
In the world's hard tumultuous strife, 

To wrest, with trembling hands — and pale — 
A triumph, that should crown my life, 

When bolder reaching might have been, 

The very trick so sure to win. 

Across the house-tops to the hills — 

And still beyond the hills I gaze ; 
If so I may o'erlook the ills 

That lie along my life's sad ways, — 
Whose narrow incompleteness seems 
A mockery to my broadening dreams. 

If but to sleep, and wake again. 

And pace the same dull round each day, — 
And strive to climb the hedge, in vain, 

That walls me back 'mong things of clay : — 
And find each new joy dashed at birth — 
If this be all, how little worth ! 



1 82 SHIPWRECK. 

My way is hedged, and weary I 

Of life's low aims, and false desires ; 

Yon blue hills touch almost, the sky, 
But I — with heart of smothered fires 
■ Must pine, a captive still below, 

Bound with the thongs that hurt me so. 



SHIPWRECK. 
What would ye, hungry and breathless sea, 

With a hundred helpless victims more ? 
Had ye not gathered enough of spoils. 

From the years that circled and swept before ? — 
Glory of manhood, and grace of youth. 

And hidden them down on your caverned floor? 

Woman weeps for the sons she bore ; 

And men — as a hurt stag — stand apart, 
With a faith in good that is scarcely faith, 

And the sting of a sudden stab at heart : 
And the sun in his golden robes, turns black ; 

And the shadows drop as an ice-barbed dart. 

Roar in your triumph, and rock, oh sea, 

And flash on the morning your peerless eye ! 

Mock if ye will, ye are stronger than we, . 

For our hearts are palsied, and may not cry : 

But a sob too deep for the world to know 
Uplifts for the martyred dead, that lie 



OUT-GOING OF A YEAR. 1 83 

In your sunless caves with the great, grand heavens 
And the beautiful world all shut from sight : — 

Oh a terrible, terrible thing, to think 

How they went down — down in the stars' dim 
light, 

A hundred kingly and valiant men, 
In the despair of a last good-night. 

As if there were not enough of graves — 
Hollow and hard — on the deathful shore, 

Where children sport on the soft gray sand, 
And prattle their sweet talk, o'er and o'er ; 

And roses blush in the tufted grass: 
And bluebirds pipe in the sycamore. 

Roar on in your triumph, and rock, oh sea, 
And toss with a boastful pride, your ships ! 

But make no moan, for our watchful ear 
Might deem it burst from those pallid lips : 

And a sob, too deep for the world to hear, 
Up-break for that terrible life-eclipse. 



OUT-GOING OF A YEAR. 

Others have gone out before — 
Out into the haunted night — 

'Cross the threshold of my door. 
And I watched them out of sight 



1 84 OUT-GOING OF A YEAR. 

With a lonely, longing sense 
Of a loss past recompense. 
Others have gone out before, 

Richer in a hundred things 
Than the one just at my door ; 

Richer in the springs 
And the summers that they brought, 
And the fine romance they wrought 

In the mesh of homely things. 
Others, grander far than this, 

In the soul's broad-winged desires, 
And the triumph and the bliss, 

Born of hope's prophetic fires, 
Have, in midnights oft before. 

Left me all alone — alone — 
With my gaze upon the floor, 

And my heart as stone ; 
But the friend that lingers now, 

With his beating heart 'gainst mine, 
And his breath upon my brow, 

In the fire's red shine ; 
Wins me more than all the rest. 
As a slow departing guest. 
That my heart hath pressed, 
With kind eyes of honest pain, 
That we ne'er shall meet again : — 
And, though chiding ere he go. 
Yet so low that none may know ; 
And such pity in his tone 
O'er my failures, that I own. 



BEYOND. 185 

Were my hands but strong to hold, 
I would grasp his mantle's fold 
That not in the haunted night 

He go sighing from my door, 
Slowly, sadly, out of sight, 

As the rest have done before. 






BEYOND. 

Will she come to me yonder, and lay her soft hand 
On my shoulder, and kiss the white flame of my 
brow, 

As she kisses it now ? 
Will she search the bright throngs of the beautiful 

land 
Till she find me ? sweet spirit of love, and so fond ; 
Shall I meet her beyond ? 

At the creep of the dusk, with her form on my knee, 
And her face pressed to mine, and her light-rippling 
hair — 

More than anything fair — 
Streaming over my own, as the sun o'er the sea ; — 
Lifts my heart a great throb, as the deep-rumbling 
shock 

Of a thunder-jarred rock. 



1 86 BURNING CHICAGO. 

For, as pale as the sands by the river, her cheek ; 
And the lips made for kissing, seem merging their 
red 

Into ashen, instead : 
I am ill — I am ill with the words mine must speak : 
And a hinting of pain, half expressed, smothered 
half. 

In her once ringing laugh. 

She will leave me, I know; when the maples shall 

wake — 
April teased — into tremulous beauty again, 

I shall not see her then : 
Slower yet, stricken heart, slower yet, lest ye break ! 
If she only will press her dear lips to my brow, 
As she presses them now. 



BURNING CHICAGO, 

On the midnight the bells are clangmg, 

As never clanged bells before ; 
And the dreamers upstart with terror, 

At the threatening, thunderous roar : 
And thousands of white, scared faces — 

With wildly questioning eyes. 
Glare out at the flame-lit blackness — 

Glare up at the blood-red skies. 



BURNING CHICAGO. 1 87 

The bells : how they shout in chorus, 

And shriek on the startled air ! — 
And mothers — with nurselings clinging — 

Are dumb with a great despair : 
For tower, and spire and turret, 

Are torn by the lightning blaze : 
Hath heaven unloosed the judgments 

Reserved for the latter days ? 

The bells : oh, the bells are maddened. 

And rave in the spectral light ; 
For the temples — with domes immortal -^ 

Are crushed in a single night : 
But the blue waves sing and ripple. 

As if it were but a jest, 
That a citv is laid in ashes — 

The fairest of all the West. 

The heart of the bells is breaking, 

And moans as in mortal pain ; — 
For your homes — your homes are perished. 

At touch of the molten rain : 
And out through the parted fire-lips. 

Black-belches a stifling breath, 
That presses the throbbing vitals, 

With the palsying weight of death. 

Fly, fly for your lives are perilled 

Nor dare for a glance turn back, 
For the teeth of a horrible monster 

Are gnashing upon your track. 



1 88 BURNING CHICAGO, 

On, on to the friendly prairie, 
Pause not for a cheating rest, 

For doom hath ingulfed your city — 
The proudest of all the West. 

The sun peers out from the eastward 

And smiles in a mocking way 
O'er the charred and smouldering remnants 

Of a boastful yesterday, 
And the treacherous winds have whispered 

In the frenzied flame-god's ear, 
And the revelries still are shameless, 

And curdle the blood to hear. 

The bells : — they are strangely silent ; — 

At rest in their towers at last ; 
And the cheek of the flames grows pallid ; 

But the nauseous smoke swirls past ; 
And men, with a chivalric manhood, 

Heroic and firm-nerved men, 
'Mid the ruins around them, falter, 

*' Will the light e'er dawn again t " 

And from ocean to white-capped ocean, 

Seem voices to quick respond, 
That a radiant morrow hasteth. 

On the wings of the near Beyond: 
And up from the sad gray ashes, 

Shall rise, by the world confessed, 
A city, the very noblest 

Of all the imperial West. 



TWICE WAITING. 1 89 



TWICE WAITING. 

A MAIDEN sat waiting for some one — 

For some one, as maidens will do 
In the morn of romance and of passion, 

When life hath a ring of the true ; 
And when love — or the charming ideal 

We know by that rapturous name — 
Seems a something so honest and real, 

To doubt it were impious blame. 

There's a click at the gate ; how she listens ! 

A foot on the step ; see her start ! 
While a thrill through her pulses runs riot, 

And joy sweeps the chords of her heart : 
Hand to hand, heart to heart he infolds her 

His own, with those exquisite charms, 
And she — she would spurn crowns and kingdoms, 

If offered outside of his arms. 



A woman, pale, weary and wretched, 

Sits listening the sough of the rain. 
All alone in the midnight ; what wonder 

If thought madden bosom and brain ? 
And her heart cries aloud in its anguish. 

Why hastes he not now as of yore. 
The one lover that came, as the sunrise 

Comes clasping the night-girdled shore ? 



190 COME TO ME, HONEST SOLDIER, 

There's a click at the gate ; oh, she listens 

With tremor and agony now : 
There^s a hand on the latch, and the blood-tide 

Leaps up in red waves to her brow : 
Well the worn watcher knows that the tempter 

Hath lifted the wine-cup for him. 
Till his manhood grew wrecked by the demon 

That lurks on the crystalline brim. 

In the nest of a soft-pillowed cradle, 

The angels keep guard o'er the child 
They had laid one blue morn on her bosom — 

Her bosom now beating so wild : 
But he heeds not the beautiful sleeper 

And she — once his darling, his pride — 
Waits in vain for the lover that comes not ; — 

The lover that came for his bride. 



Ml 



COME TO ME, HONEST SOLDIER. 

Come to me, honest soldier. 

And give me your brave right hand. 

And hear what I say, in this fair May-day — 
That in all our glorious land. 

With its lusty and loyal legions, 

That never a war-cry knew. 
There is not a soul 'mong the struggling whole, 

That I honor as much as you. 



COME TO ME, HONEST SOLDIER, 19I 

Stand in the full light, soldier, 

What if your locks be gray 
And no youthful grace on your toil-worn face — 

I remember well the day 

When you heard from afar the signal 

That told of a danger near, 
And you quickly strode down the country road, 

With never a thrill of fear. 

Though your heart was well nigh breaking 

At the sobbing at the door, 
For you might not tell, if that brief farewell — 

Hark, was that the cannon's roar ? 

And your pulses bounded faster, 

But your step was firm and light 
As you breathed a vow — it is heaven-kept now — 

You would die, if need, for the right. 

And then, oh the days of horror 

And the terrible nights of pain. 
While we slept on till the peaceful dawn, 

And you 'mid the heaps of slain. 

Ah me, it was cruel, cruel, 

But you to your flag were true. 
So give me your hand, for none in the land 

I honor as much as you. 



1 92 WAVE OF THE SEA. 



WAVE OF THE SEA, 

Sure you must know my deep gladness, oh beautiful 

Wave of the sea, 
That you come tossing your white arms, and joyously 

Beckoning me. 
Was it the garrulous winds from the mountain-top, 

Hinted the tale ? 
Or the fair moon, as she rode with her retinue, 

Stately and pale ? 
How with his eloquent eyes he came wooing me ; — 

Heart, do not beat ! 
How with his musical voice he came suing me — 

Bowed at my feet ; 
How with his passionate lips he came kissing me ; — 

Be there a bliss 
Left from the sin-stain, that wrecked our humanity, 

Surely 'tis this. 

Now you must know my great sorrow, oh wonderful 

Wave of the sea! — 
That you come drooping your sad arms, and silently 

Pitying me : 
Was it the sea-gull that screams like a maniac. 

Told you the tale ? 
Or the soft coo of the dove, from its hermitage 

Down the green vale ? 
How with his eloquent voice he went grieving me — 

Speaking so low, 



SONG OF THE SUSQUEHANNA. 1 93 

But for their coldness the words were deceiving me ; 

Flow, poor eyes, flow : 
How with his passionate lips he ceased kissing me : 

Ah, can there be 
In all the world deeper anguish, oh pitying 

Wave of the sea ! 



SONG OF THE SUSQUEHANNA AT 
WYOMING, 

A century's voices left behind — 
As echoes on the hollow wind : 
" So many springs ! so many springs ! " 
The mated thrush above me sings ; 
And I — as lonely as a cloud — 
Listened through all each happy crowd 
Go swinging by, unheeding me — 
Mute consort of a century. 

Ere yet my earlier pulses woke 

To human tragedy, there broke 

Across my unreguarded breast, 

The sound of hurrying feet, sore-pressed 

By nearing peril ; and a cry 

Rang out so sharply 'gainst the sky, 

That crept the grieved stars down to me, 

As I wound sobbing to the sea. 



194 SONG OF THE SUSQUEHANNA, 

If mine the cunning trick of speech, 
The dreamer — loitering on the beach — 
Might glean from my swift words a wTong, 
Unparalleled in tale or song ; — 
That burned its deep and deathless trace 
On unborn souls, sprung from a race 
Whose matchless valor, o'er and o'er 
I murmur, chained 'twixt shore and shore. 

Within these saddened arms — ah me — 
What sorrows bore I to the sea ! 
From my low couch I watched it all — 
The arrow shot, the victim fall ; 
The wily foe in noiseless bark ; 
The cabin blazing in the dark ; 
And mothers wdth a homeless brood, 
Sheltered beneath a midnight \vood. 

Oh troubled vale of long-ago, 

'Mid thine own forests, cradled low ! 

What sickening trails of poor, torn feet. 

Wound 'mong thy blossoms — wild and sweet 

What dumb, affrighted eyes gazed out 

O'er ruined homesteads, with a doubt 

If Heaven were near enough to hear 

The prayers that smote my own dull ear. 

Oh valley of historic fame. 
What tender magic in thy name ! 
What spell of witcher}^ o'er thee cast, 
Woofed from thy sombre-threaded past ! 



SONG OF THE SUSQUEHANNA. 1 95 

For Poesy — enchanting guest — 
Divined what words would fit thee best, 
And gave — with pen of classic pose — 
Thy praise to every wind that blows. 

A hundred Junes have fluttered by, 
Humming low arias with a sigh, 
Warm and impassioned as love's own, 
When, 'neath the moon, the night lies lone ; 
Since burst that hapless wail of doom 
From out thy throbbing heart of bloom ; 
And the grieved stars crept down to me, 
As I went sobbing to the sea. 

A hundred ardent summers pressed 

Their flushed cheeks 'gainst my wounded breast 

And breathed upon the war-hurt sod. 

Till, where the foot of toil hath trod, 

Leap wondrous shapes of beauty wrought, 

'Mid the rapt silences of thought ; 

And 'twixt the wide, unresting seas, 

No fairer outlined fields than these. 

Still wind I sobbing to the sea. 
Whose white arms reach to w^elcome me ; 
And still gay crowds go swinging by, 
And none of all so lone as I ; 
For on my breast the old wound yet. 
Though meadow-green and violet 
Lean from the fragrance of the grass, 
And touch my cool lips as I pass. 



196 GEN. GRANT'S DEFEAT. 

GEN. GRANT'S DEFEAT. 

AT THE CHICAGO FAIR. 

He Stood — oh not on the conquering field, 

Where the hero was wont to stand, 
While the waiting ranks surged to and fro 

At wave of his strong-nerved hand : — 
But, gallant and grave in a festive hall ! 

Where gathered the gay and fair ; 
And never an armored knight withstood 

Such glances as met him there. 

'Mid the rustle of silks and hum of speech, 

Stole a whisper on the air ; — 
That fluttered from smiling lip to lip. 

As a secret all would share : 
"These maidens are dying to kiss you, sir,'' 

So a silvery voice rang out : 
" Why not ? " was the cavalier's response, 

And then for a merry rout. 

A bevy of witching sprites uprose. 

With their soft eyes on him bent ; 
And ripples of laughter, sweet as trills 

Of a June brook, came and went : 
Nearer and nearer the sirens swept — 

As an avalanche of flowers, 
. That elfins toss from a tropical bough, 

In their revelling moon-w^hite hours. 



CALL ME DARLING, 1 97 

Nearer and nearer they circled him — 

That chief of a mighty past, 
Till pressed to his bearded blushing cheek 

Lay their full red lips at last : 
And the Spartan that never quailed before, 

When shivered and shook the land. 
Would now have fled from a rosy mouth, 

And the clasp of a dimpled hand. 

Victor, showered with glory-bays, 

You have met at last, defeat ; 
But never on conquering, tented field 

Were a triumph half so sweet : 
Oh, stern and strong, 'mid the martial throng ! 

Oh, gallant and grave 'mid this 1 
Thrills deeper the heart at duty's call, 

Or the homage of beauty's lips. 

CALL ME DARLLNG. 

Call me darling, only darling. 
And my life would not complain, 

Though its burdens all were heavy, 
And its heritage but pain. 

Call me darling; 'tis the fondest, 

'Tis the holiest and best 
Of all murmured tendernesses 

E'er by loving lips confessed. 



198 SONG OF A LEAF. 

Call me darling ; say it always ; 

Breathe it softly as a prayer, 
When the vesper chimes are sighing 

Penitence upon the air. 

Whisper that my heart may hear it, 
'Mid the day's discordant jars ; 

And when night drops low her curtain. 
Lisp its music 'neath the stars. 

Darling, darling, say it always. 
And my life were truly blest. 

Though it sip, each weary morning, 
Of the wine from aloes pressed. 



Ml 



SONG OF A LEAK 

When the blaze of a million sunbeams out-flashed 

from the eye of morning. 
And the brooks and birds together came hinting of 

April secrets, 
I was born — they say — and christened, at the font 

of heaven's own pouring ; — 
And tucked in a forest cradle, w^here the breezes 

sang and rocked me, 
And the warm rains fell as kisses, and the faithful 

stars watched o'er me. 



SONG OF A LEAR 1 99 

That never a midnight vandal the thread of my life 

dissever ; — 
Till within me stirred young pulses, and my swelling 

veins ran riot 
With the best wines and the purest, that flowed at 

the feast of summer ; 
And I tossed and swung triumphant, with a haughty 

glancing downward 
At the low-born things beneath me, and said I should 

flaunt forever. 

But another mom slow-loitered through the uu- 
watched gates of autumn, 

With banners and gay devices, and an alchymist, on- 
leading, 

Whose breath — as a steel-cold dagger — with a 
death-hurt stung my vitals, 

And at sunset lay I helpless, and pale as a rose, 
moon-whitened. 

With the mosses bending o'er me : oh stars, were ye 
weary watching ? 

And rains, with your warm w^hite trickling, why fell 
ye no more with kisses ? 

If I might entreat ye, spirit of woodland song and 
fragrance. 

On the still cool air to murmur the strains of a by- 
gone summer. 

There were less of pain in lying forgotten and un- 
regarded. 

In this lone and loveless hollow with the chill snows 
on my bosom. 



200 SA'OW-WJ^AFT. 



SNOW-WRAPT. 

Oh my children of the garden, 

How you shiver ! 
As an August-stifled aspen 

By the river ; 
Coax yon sunbeam, oh my children, 

Bid it hasten, 
And your trailing, ice-meshed mantle 

Quick unfasten ! 

Where have fled the lover breezes ? 

Are they wooing 
Virgin buds in warm south meadows ? 

Or pursuing 
Some shy rose-heart — for their coming 

Faster throbbing ? — 
Lonely children, do I hear you 

Softly sobbing ? 

Ah, my darlings ; sum.mer lovers — 

As the swallows — 
Every one at sorrow's snow-fall, 

Flits, and follows, 
To some shore where fresher blossoms 

Scent the morning ; 
And the sky, of storm and sadness 

Hints no warning. 



OUR PATHS. 20I 



OUR PATHS. 

For bride and lover, none more fair : 

His arm around my slender waist, 
We loitered here — we lingered there, 

'Mid life's new bloom, nor made we haste : 
My hand in his : how warm and strong 

The willing palm that pressed my own ! 
What shelter from the jostling throng ! 

What refuge when the starlight shone ! 

We heard the gales from eastward blow, 

That shook the mountain's granite crest, 
But in that wondrous long-ago. 

They rocked us to supremest rest. 
Whatever ailed the troubled land. 

Or stirred its throbbing heart with sighs, 
We sauntered lightly, hand in hand, 

And smiled into each other's eyes. 

Ah me : one shining summer day, 

I missed the dear face from my side : 
What rival won his love away ? 

My soul in frenzied accents cried : 
I rearched out longing arms, in vain : 

I searched the paths we two had trod : 
Oh, deepest thrill of human pain ! 

Oh, dumb lips 'neath the fresh-turned sod ! 



202 WOODLAND FRIENDS, 

What rival won his love away ? — 

I question still, with sobbing breath : 
My empty arms are tired to-day, 

From battling for my own with Death : 
He proved the stronger ; what could I — 

With such a foe, in such a strife ? 
My wounded heart henceforth must lie 

Across some bloomless track of life. 

Invisible the wall that bars 

Our paths apart : I walk alone : 
And he beyond earth's cruel woes, 

In sight of the celestial throne : 
And some day, on those cool white sands, 

Shall wielded be these broken ties : 
And we again wdth clasping hands, 

Smile fondly in each other s eyes. 






WOODLAND FRIENDS. 

Oh children of summer waving 

Your winsome arms to me, 
I am coming, coming, coming; 

Your welcome — what shall it be ? 
A tender and loyal greeting, 

As lover to lover, true ? 
Oh, among them all believe me, 

I find no friends like you. 



WOODLAND FRIENDS, 203 

I know by your leaves' light quiver; 

I know by the fervent beat 
Of your strong and honest pulses, 

As I rest at your moss-veiled feet ; 
That your rugged heart would listen, 

Though my own should whisper all, 
Whenever the rough world grieve me. 

Whatever my life befall. 

Mute friends, ye are kinder to me 

Than those of my own degree ; — 
For they — when I trust them — stab me 

With a shameless treachery : 
And the sting of their small reproaches. 

And the sharpness of their speech, 
Are poniards, that dip my heart-blood, 

Wherever a blade may reach. 

When the arms of sleep infold me 

On the sorrowful shore of night ; 
And the stars clasp hands, and bless me, 

As priests in their robes of white : 
And the purple air is heavy 

With the odorous rain of dew. 
You are calling, calling, calling, 

And my heart-throbs answer you. 

And out in the flush of dav-break. 

You timidly breathe my name ; 
And again you murmur something, 

With the western sky aflame : 



204 UNREAD. 

And across the pebbly brooklet, 
And the hill that lies between, 

I hasten, with love's devotion. 
Till upon your breast I lean. 

And a restfulness comes to me. 

That never my soul may find 
In the dust and heat and hurry 

Of the great world left behind : 
Though it call me back to duty 

From my dream-life, and from you. 
Oh friends of the summer w^oodlands, 

I still will believe in you. 



UNREAD, 

Some day — this I lightly said — 

Some day when the world goes ill, 
And a hunger ails my heart 

That no joy may fill, 
I will hide away, alone — 

Hide with all my hurt and pain. 
And unfold these letters old 
To the light again. 

*^ Some day when the world goes ill ; " 

I have said it o'er and o'er, 
With the sad break of a smile 
That my red lips wore ; 



UNREAD, 205 

But — I own It — yet so weak 

Seems this coward heart of mine, 
That I dare not Hft a page — 
Dare not scan a line. 

Where are now those willing hands, 

Once that held for me the pen ? 
If as cold as untracked snow, 

Warm and blue-veined then : 
If pink-palmed to-day, forgot 

The sweet trick of shaping speech — 
In the silence of the night 
For my own to reach. 

When the rain is on the roof. 

Dripping, dripping down the eaves. 
And the winds sob, with cool arms 

Full of dying leaves, 
I will shut and bolt the door. 

Where no curious eyes may see, 
And dream over the old dreams. 
Once so sweet to me. 

" Some day when the world goes ill ; '* 

I am weary saying it, 
For no morning yet so dark, 

That my soul dare sit 
'Mong the haunting, phantom hands. 

And the faces bent above, 
With the unforgotten grace 
Of a vanished love. 



206 ON OCEAN BEACH. 

Still they lie there year by year, 

With the magic words unread ; 
Still my coward heart holds back 

With a nameless dread ; 
** Some day ; " ah, too well I know, 

'Twould but add a deeper pain 
To unfold these letters old 
To the light again. 






ON OCEAN BEACH, 



Who calls thee free unresting sea ? 
Who calls thee free ? 



What though thy strong limbs run and race 
Through untracked space ; 

And leap and plunge, as if a world 
Were 'gainst them hurled ; 

And jar a farther continent 
With force unspent, 

Though centuries have supped thy blood, 
Unconquered flood ! 

Who calls thee free ? the sea-gull's wing — 
So slight a thing — 



ON OCEAN BEACH. 20/ 

With sweep and swing, circles as far 
As any star ; 

And scorns thy braggart, boastful roar 
From shore to shore ; — 

Where chains of sand imprison thee, 
Complaining sea, 

Thy rough arms tire themselves to reach 
The dumb-mouthed beach ; 

And clutch at something in the air, 
As in despair 

At being walled so far below 
Where light birds go ; 

And eagles, from gray crags, survey 
Thy wind-blown spray, 

And marvel what unhappy guest — 
Seeking sweet rest 

In thy green chambers, deep and lone. 
Should make such moan. 

What matters, though the spring's young lip 
Thy juices sip ; — 



208 ON OCEAN BEACH. 

Or summer glory tint thy veins 
With golden stains ; 

Or winter shrieking from the coast — 
Rival thy boast — 

If but so trifling, slight a thing 
As sea-bird's wing, 

May dip thy milk-white surf, and lift 
Where low clouds drift ; 

And strange lights quiver up the sky, 
And thou must lie 

Moaning as convict chained apart 
With breaking heart, 

Tossing defiant arms to reach 
The restful beach ; 

While soft-eyed babes entangle there 
Thy yellow hair ; 

And clasp thy garment's hem, with laugh 

Too glad by half 

To hear or heed thy threatening roar. 
From shore to shore. 



YESTERDAY, 209 



YESTERDA K 

With white arms full 

Of gifts for me : 

My mood too dull — 

Too dull to see ; 

If I had known — if I had known, 

While the bright day was yet my own. 

To-day — ah well — 

To-day is fair ; 
But need I tell 
What softer air — 
Fresh as the morning breath of May — 
Blew from the hills of yesterday ? 

Sweet yesterday ! 

With reaching hands 
I gaze away 

Across the sands, 
To see if, somewhere, I may find 
A careless trifle left behind. 

A leaf, wind-blown, 
That fluttered by, 
When all alone 
The woods and I, 
Or red rose that I used to wear 
In the dark beauty of my hair. 



2IO AFRILIA. 

The tender eyes 

That smiled in mine -^ 
If those dear eyes 
Again would shine ; 
And I might find along the way 
The heart that loved me yesterday. 

Oh love ! oh loss ! 

No use, tired hands, 
To reach across 
The fading sands, 
They are not there — the gifts that lay 
In the white arms of yesterday. 



AFRILIA. 

She is fickle as the skies 

That in April bend above her. 
There is sunshine in her eyes. 

There are rain-drops ; yet I love her. 
Clearest dawns may boast a charm, 

Undimmed noons a nameless splendor. 
But the glow is all too w^arm, 

Soft clouds make the light more tender. 

How she cheats me with her smiles ! 

How she tortures me with weeping ! 
Never siren with such wiles 

Held a helpless soul in keeping : 



APRILIA, 211 

Armed with velvet panoply, 

She but wounds, while she entrances ; 
Oh she mocks and maddens me 

With love's cruel necromancies. 

If she were but kinder! no-, 

Dare my weak heart risk the favor 
Lest I weary ? — speak it low, 

That it reach not my enslaver. 
Cupid most delights, 'tis said. 

In possessions coyly given, — 
Binding with a silken thread, 

Every mesh by coldness riven. 

Yesterday her heart was mine, 

So she said, and I believed her, 
But to-day no loving sign 

In her dear eyes : have I grieved her ? 
I was over-fond, no doubt. 

Lovers are such fools in wooing ; 
Though the red lips smile or pout, 

They are surely our undoing. 

Could I help it ? — for her head 

Drooped upon my happy shoulder. 
And the tender words she said — 

Murmured rather — made me bolder: 
Maybe when the moon to-night 

Whitens all the slumberous city. 
She will make the wrong all right 

With her penitence and pity. 



212 IN THE STARLIGHT. 

She so fickle, — I so fond ; 

Shall we always walk together 
In the pleasant paths beyond, 

Whether fair or stormy weather ? 
If she were but kinder ; well, 

I shall love her — I shall love her 
Though as fickle — must I tell ? — 

As the April skies above her. 



IN THE STARLIGHT. 

In the starlight I dream, and my dream, would you 

know it ? 
Oh busy-brained world, oh hope-girded young heart ? 
What words may depict all the terrible seeming. 
Of what my sad soul in the starlight sits dreaming. 
From- out the gray mist stalking faster and faster 
What shapes of the past but to tell war's disaster ? 
With frost on the roof, or with flush o'er the clover, 
I dream 'neath the stars this dream over and over. 

In the starlight I hear — oh the pathos of telling ! 
I hear all night long the uprising and swelling 
Of forces that surge over hill, over hollow, 
With hearts of wrought-steel, if to lead — if to follow 
And hand pressed to hand in heroic endeavor 
To hold the dear flag, but to yield it, oh never : 
To yield the old flag ? with iron pen be it graven, 
That 'mong all our sons, not a coward, or craven. 



AFTER ALL. 213 

In the starlight I see — dost remember it, brother ? — 
You stood at the dawn with gaze fixed on each other, 
And said — not in words — but with hearts wildly- 
beating — 
Shall night shine for us ? oh the pain of repeating ! 
I see where the dead lay unheeding, uncaring, 
Your comrades in arms, the devoted, the daring. 
The story again — oh the pathos of telling ! 
Then silent grieved lips, though the bosom be 
swelling. 

If my dream be but idle, sweet starlight, dispel it ! 
The stain on our turf, and the wrong that befell it, 
Have passed with the years into blood-written story, 
And wreathed with fresh bays the poor thing we call 

glory ; 
The meadows are green, and the glad kine are 

lowing ; 
All over the woodlands are wild roses blowing ; 
With sword in its sheath, and with plough in the 

furrow, 
A sigh for the past, and a hope for the morrow. 



AFTER ALL. 

What is it worth, after all — 
Life with its rapture, its heart-ache, its hurry; 
Life with its conquests, its warfare, its worry. 

Slipping so soon past recall. 



214 AFTER ALL. 

Over and over again — 
Going and coming, and coming and going ; 
Knowing so much ill enough worth the knowing ; 

Ending in folly and pain. 

See from the far-stretching shore, 
Hither and thither, for ever and ever, 
Hope-builded boats down a measureless river, 

Drift to the great nevermore ! 

Fair as a picture it seems ; — 
Shore of our youth, where the tide sweeps so grandly ; 
Shore where the breeze whispers secrets so blandly ; 

Shore of magnificent dreams. 

Down 'mong those beautiful sands, 
Silvery shells with a pearl-tinted lining ; — 
Only half-hidden, their exquisite shining — 

Wait the light clasp of our hands. 

Little it matters at last ; 
We may not linger — still moving — still mov- 
ing- 
Outward or onward, or hating or loving. 
Leaving the shells with the past. 

Battling, with resolute oar. 
Billows that mock, and that rock and o'er-ride us, 
While helpless voyagers perish beside us, 

Perish in sight of the shore. 



HOW MANY, 215 

Be our cup nectar, or gall ; 
Be the way cloudless, or gloom-arched and groping ; 
Black with despair, or triumphant with hoping ; 

What is it worth, after all ? 

Make it the most that you can ; 
Sift from the dust at your feet ever}^ treasure, 
Weigh it with full, aye, munificent measure; 

Dross, only dross, fellow-man. 

HOW MANY, 

Of the careless and smooth-flowing lines, 

That my heart coaxed this light pen to trace 
When the grapes clustered full on the vines. 
And my cup brimmed with youth's sparkling wines, 
Is there one that not time shall efface ? 

'Mong them all, is there one that may stand 

The cold swash of the waves 'gainst the shore, 
Where the past will have slid 'neath the sand, 
And the new lash the old from the land. 
With the thongs of a jealous-born lore ? 

Is there one that shall swing down the years, 

On the web fancy playfully spun 
Of the warm mist from slow-dropping tears, 
Undismayed by the cynic's fine sneers. 

Or the thought- wrecks thick strewn in the sun ? 



2l6 WILLIE, 

When no whiter the moon than my face, 

And this pen — with the rest — hid from sight, 
Will there gleam through the dust one faint trace 
Of the songs that not time shall efface — 
The low songs that my heart sings to-night ? 



WILLIE. 

We said, our door is safely barred, 

And love stands sentinel and guard. 

That the grim spoiler may not dare 

To seize the jewels of our care : 

But with a careless autumn breath. 

Crept in the wily winner, Death, 

And whispered something strangely sweet. 

For Willie, with those tender feet 

That never strayed from home before, 

Stole softly out the guarded door. 

Oh heartless world, ye little care 

That Willie, with the silken hair, 

And Willie with the laughing eyes, 

And questionings, and apt replies. 

Went from our arms one autumn day. 

When red leaves in the wood-paths lay, — 

Along the unfamiliar track 

O'er which no dear feet wander back : 

To you a trivial thing, indeed. 

But in our homes, what bosoms bleed ! 



A YEAR'S REVIEW. 21/ 



A YEAR'S REVIEW. 

Failure, and only failure, 

Each step of the crooked way ; 

And the wrecks — I dare not count them — 
On the shore of every day. 

Failure, and only failure, 

Over and over again ; 
With my high resolves dismembered, 

And lost in the reckless main. 

And the words I should have spoken, 
And the deeds I should have done, 

Confront me at every gateway. 
In the new paths leading on. 

I had said that my fields should blossom — 

The fields I had thickly sown 
With seed of a noble promise, 

But a wind — from some cloud outblown 

Breathed over them, and they withered, 
And my soul cried out with pain ; 

For the whole was failure — failure 
Over and over again. 



2l8 A YEAR'S REVIEW. 

In the yesterdays that vanished, 
Ere yet I could call them mine, 

There were gilded cups, full brimming 
With a white, rare-flavored wine. 

That had dripped from joy's fine vintage, 
As the gales of hope swung by ; 

But others the nectar tasted 
With a smiling lip — not I. 

Shall the new tides dashing onward 

'Gainst the rocks where dashed the old, 

Yet toss on the shore a gladness 
For my reaching hands to hold ? 

Or shall a bolder snatch it, 

And my own be empty still ? 
Gray tides on the cold sands breaking. 

For your sweet wine I am ill. 

If I knew there were shoals in waiting, 

To grapple the careless keel 
Of my bark, o'er the young year's currents, 

Till with wounds it writhe and reel, 

As a dove by an arrow stricken, 

I should shrink from each waking mom ; 

For, more than the scent of roses. 
The sting of the rose-tree's thorn. 



REST, 219 



REST. 



Well, there is a quiet hillside 

Yonder, after all ; 
And upon some golden morrow — 

What though love may call ? 
I shall sleep and rest me sweetly 

Where its shadows fall. 

If my life yet grow too weary 

With its low-born care ; 
And the blows fall fast, and faster, 

More than I can bear ; 
And no other rest or refuge, 

It awaits me there. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




012 228 055 A ^^ 



